Cloud Nine
by Urusai Lilania
Summary: Sasori never thought the gaki would last long, but how long did that mean coming from a man who craved eternity? Growing up alongside such an individual was bound to effect Deidara somehow. And life in the realm of Akatsuki is demanding... *Pre-PTS Naruto
1. Prologue: First Encounter

"Cloud Nine"

00: Prologue

Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH

Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.

Summary: Hnn... what started as an attempt at drabbles became one continuous fic. The prologue (this) starts just after Orochimaru left Akatsuki, based on a recent discussion. Sorta wondered what it'd be like dealing with Deidara at such a young age. But yeah. The story will eventually contain nearly anything I can think of, mainly focuses on the comings and goings of Sasori and Deidara of the Akatsuki. Eventual SasoDei/DeiSaso, since it seems to flit back and forth with me.

Sasori and Deidara are partners within Akatsuki, for better or worse. Between the times in the lair and the air between missions, where do you go about learning of each other?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.

-----

"My new partner is _that_ thing?" Sasori ground out, not even bothering to glance at the figure across the room. "How do you expect me to get anything done if I have to _babysit_?!" It was dark in the leader of Akatsuki's chamber; the man had called Sasori to him to receive a new briefing. The S-ranked ninja had known he was in for a few changes when his previous partner, Orochimaru from Konohagakure, had defected from the organization. He had even considered the fact that Sir Leader would have him taking rather pointless assignments, or being stuck in the damn lair for longer than usual... but not _this_. Along with a new mission, Sir Leader was assigning a new _partner_ to Sasori. How the hell the man managed to find people to join his little 'scouts' in the first place was beyond Sasori; his own initiation had been rough, but was now a distant memory. And even if he appeared to be nothing more than a whelp, Sasori had been already in his teens then. He had his doubts that this one had even reached puberty yet.

"Sasori, Sasori..." Sir Leader breathed, his silver eyes bearing down upon the small hunched up puppet body. "I'm sure you two will get along just fine. In the mean time, I'd appreciate it if you could do a little job for me..." His voice felt like a bucket of ice-water, or rather freshly liquefied metal, but Sasori could only hear the effect, not feel it. The strange aura that seemed to surround even the astral projection was enough to agitate him, but he remained blissfully unaware of the sickening physical side-affects the other members complained about frequently. And besides all that, he had been a member of Akatsuki for years; Sasori didn't see why the mere presence of a man's _image_ should strike some sort of impure fear in him.

"Didn't you hear a thing I just said?" the man snapped, his eyes narrowing beyond view. "I'd get any job you give me taken care of _faster_ if you'd just leave me be! Put him with Zetsu or... Kakuzu, or someone _else _for gods' sake!"

Shaking his head slowly, Sir Leader frowned. "Wouldn't do, I'm afraid. Zetsu's already got his hands full with a task. Of course, the previous person to wear this ring was in fact _his_ partner, but he performs much better alone the things I assign him. And be as it may that Kakuzu has recently disposed of _another_ of his partners, this one wouldn't last a day with him. Nothing in common, regrettably."

"Like that's hardly mattered before!" The puppeteer frowned inwardly. He had been wondering how it was that he was receiving a partner, when Orochimaru had run off with _his_ ring, the ring of 'sky'. Zetsu's partner had the ring of 'blue' if he remembered correctly... Still, he couldn't be bothered to wonder just how Zetsu had lost his own partner. Regardless of how, it was the reason Sasori was now in his current predicament. "Tch..."

"My, my. I do believe I asked you to calm down, Sasori. You and Orochimaru had quite a few things in common I'm sure, but this experience should at least prove to be a bit more useful for you. Now about your assignment..."

The puppet-master frowned at being brushed off, but there was not much else he could do at this point. Sir Leader had said his fill about the whole thing and if he pushed the subject any further he was liable to be paired with Kakuzu himself. The small figure in question fidgeted incessantly, particularly coiling and fiddling with his hands as though he were extremely nervous about the whole matter. _This is ridiculous,_ the puppet-master mused as Sir Leader went on about the mission. _I'll just have to deal with it for now. He'll probably be dead after this anyway._

The briefing itself didn't take long, as it was in fact an easier mission than the ones Sasori had grown accustomed to; recently Sir Leader had explained that they needed to lay low a bit more. It made sense that Sasori would be the one to bear the brunt of such a change, between the loss of his partner and the induction of such a whelp into the ranks as a replacement. Inwardly the man wondered if Sir Leader intended him to become a sort of instructor to the kid. After all, he kept giving him that strange explanation of "something in common" throughout the lecture. Wasn't this the man who always said explanations and excuses were pointless? In any event, he was making a mockery of the puppet-master, from Sasori's own perspective. Inwardly he struggled with such a thick myriad of thoughts that he had hardly noticed the end of the meeting, or exiting the dark chamber. Only the sudden shock of light from a sconce set right outside the doorway brought Sasori out of his contemplation.

The walk down the corridor back to the sleeping chambers was what Sasori knew he'd regret making. As it was, he moved at a slow place from within his awkward shell, adding to the minutes that he would get to listen to his new 'partner'. He had hoped that the blond would remain silent, but it was immediately obvious that the kid wasn't that sort of person the moment they started moving.

"I'm not a kid you know, un." The protest was short, but the voice that said it had the weight of granite. "Well, compared to you old bats, maybe, but I can take care of my self. Is Sir Leader always like that? Seems a bit out there, yeah..."

Sasori twitched from within his shell; he had caught himself nearly answering the barrage of questions. Instead, he chose one for himself as he continued to shift down the long hall towards their living chambers. "What's your name?"

"Deidara, un!"

"All right, Deidara. Shut the fuck up already." He heard the sudden change in pace as the blond boy stopped in his tracks momentarily, staring hard at the stooped shell Sasori chose to hide away in. Ignoring the obvious sign that he had thrown off Deidara, Sasori continued to shuffle back to their chamber, basking in the relative silence. Almost instantly the blond began walking again, though this time he merely kept pace with the older man, quietly toying with his hands yet again. Somehow, this made the silence heavy; no matter how much the puppeteer expected Deidara to renew his efforts, the blond only seemed to withdraw deeper within himself, his focus on his hands unbroken. It remained like this all the way to their room.

Sasori opened the door silently, wide enough that his puppet shell could shuffle inside without getting caught; it was the only thing giving Deidara a chance to enter. Muttering incoherently to himself, the puppet-master sidled up to his workbench and remained there for the time being. Deidara glanced around the room, still enveloped in silence. On the opposite side of the small chamber lay a second bed, another table, a sconce and a few other objects. Folded neatly on the bed lay the boy's new wardrobe, the standard apparel of those ranked within Akatsuki. He made his way over, picked up the bundle and looked it over for a few minutes before placing it on his workbench. _Zetsu must have brought it in here while we were out,_ Sasori considered, twitching slightly at the idea of the grass-nin inside of his quarters. At any rate, there was nothing particularly 'tasty' or 'palatable' for the cannibal to get his teeth into, thankfully.

"So... what are you doing now, un?" the blond asked, his voice much more level than before. This didn't keep it from annoying his partner, despite him obviously trying to listen. _Fifteen minutes,_ he thought to himself. Sasori admittedly was unused to the company; ever since Orochimaru had defected, he had been left alone in the chamber. And while he may have utterly hated the leaf-nin, Sasori had at least appreciated the fact that the man left him alone. This blond was another story entirely.

"We have a mission in the morning, dipshit. It's called preparation," he responded readily without bothering to glance over at the boy.

"I'm all ready!" Deidara announced cheerfully, his visible eye closing as he grinned.

Now _this_ was beyond even Sasori's thinking. "You're just bringing that little bag?" he demanded with a frown. He had spun where he stood to see the blond behind him sitting on the edge of _Sasori's_ bed, legs splayed as he leaded forward to intently and – supposedly – discreetly observe the puppet-master working. The bag in question was clasped between both hands, small, simple, and probably not very deadly, as one couldn't even stick it over another's head in hopes of suffocating them. This wasn't to say that Sasori had thought to do such a thing to Deidara; he was certain he could think up something much more inventive, but it would also imply that he cared enough to do so, and he was having trouble wrapping his mind around that paradox currently.

Shrugging off the incredulous look his partner was giving him, Deidara laughed. "Yeah, it'll be enough, Sasori-danna, un."

The statement came forth so easily that Sasori completely forgot to yell at the boy for sitting on his bed. Stunned into a sort of blank fog inside his mind, the small man finally asked, "What did you just call me, gaki?" Had the blond been a better judge of character, or at the very least understood what Sasori's namesake was, he would have known that the nickname, as well as the strange grinding noise in the back of the words, was not that of affection.

"Sasori-danna, yeah! Sir Leader was saying that you're an artist of some kind, but all this stuff is pretty cool! I'm an artist too, so you're my danna, see?" Waving a hand to the works around the bench, Deidara nodded enthusiastically and put his hands back in his lap, still clutching his precious bag.

"Right. Because that makes perfect sense," Sasori muttered, though his interest had been piqued slightly. _What sort of art is that dipshit talking about?_ he wondered to himself, glancing once more at the small bag Deidara fiddled with now and again. It was a bit unusual to be given such a nickname as well; the others found Sasori's art to be more than a bit... disturbing. At best, to Sir Leader, it was just another useful way of disposing of corpses, losing any meaning.

_Fuck me... he's grinning again. Who the hell grins like that, anyway? Gaki looks like he just had a plate stuck in his mouth._ "Where are you from, un?" _Shit, kid, just because I looked at you doesn't mean you should open that fucking mouth of yours..._

"...The Sand," Sasori admitted grudgingly, his eyes narrowing. It was times like this he wondered how dense people survived; he realized it must had something to do with the simple fact that the people who _would_ get rid of them, like himself, were too stubborn to touch them. Albeit, Deidara was a _kid_, but any kid joining a group of S-rank criminals should at least have his defense tested anyway, right? He turned away yet again.

"Sunagakure..." the boy murmured, letting it sink in for a moment. "I'm from Iwagakure, yeah."

Letting loose a sigh, Sasori turned around once more to get a good look at his interrogator. "That sort of information is irrelevant at this point, isn't it, gaki?" _I'm not getting any work done, at this rate._

A thin, nasty grin spread across the blonde's face as his eye glinted cheerfully. "Yeah, I guess so, un... How old are you?"

Sasori frowned for a moment. Between the questions and how many emotions Deidara could use that _same damn grin_ for, he wondered if he was getting a migraine. "Twenty-five, if that means anything to you." He didn't feel like explaining it in much more detail, as it was unlikely the idiotic gaki would be able to comprehend it all in the first place.

The blond nodded, his hair momentarily obscuring his face. "Hmm... nine, I guess, yeah."

This admission got the puppeteer's attention. Stopping what he was doing, Sasori turned heavily around to stare at the peculiar blond before him. "What'd you say, gaki?"

"I'll be nine this year, I think, un!"

Sasori would have fallen to the ground in the shock that rolled over him had he not already been low to the ground in the first place. _...Nine? Gaki is _nine_?! What in fucking hell was Sir Leader thinking?! Wait..._ "How could you not know how old you are? Are you really that stupid?"

The scowl that found its way to the blonde's face was nothing short of elaborate. His nose scrunched up awkwardly and his mouth moved as though he was going to shout something particularly vulgar, but instead the boy simply stated, "My folks never told me when my birthday was, yeah. I just celebrate it when I feel like it, un... from what those old women in town were always complaining about, I decided I'm about eight!" Having jumped the first hurtle of emotion, Deidara seemed to regain his countenance and added, "It's not that bad, right? Sir Leader was telling me how this one guy is only two years older than me, and he joined a little while ago, yeah! And then that Sasori-danna was... uh... like a teenager when he came in, un!"

Sweatdropping, Sasori cursed inwardly, but caught the blonde's embarrassed flush. "You weren't paying attention, were you, gaki?" Grinning ruefully, Deidara shook his head. _Well if it's a question of loyalty, best to start young and raise them, is that what you've been thinking the whole time, Sir Leader?_

Sasori turned back to his workbench, choosing to step away from the conversation before the child thought he was actually interested in him. Sorting through his tools, the man attempted to finish preparing before he would be set upon with more pestering. _Gaki's about the age to be _entering_ a training facility,_ Sasori rationalized, knowing Iwagakure's timetable was similar to the other ninja villages. _If Sir Leader took him in, it's safe to assume he's shown a high rate of potential and performance already. He may be pushing his luck with this one though. That Uchiha from Konohagakure was one thing... what does this gaki have to offer that Sir Leader would take his chances?_

-----

Deidara glanced over to the other side of the room where the last sconce still burned, emitting just enough light to enable Sasori to continue on with his preparations. The blond continued to watch his so-called 'master' in this silence for a few more minutes before he finally worked up the nerve to speak again. "Danna?"

"I told you not to call me that," Sasori said flatly from his workbench. He had been aware of the blond watching him, or at least he had once the boy had begun to move under the sheets again.

"Yeah... un."

"Then why are you still doing it and what the hell are you bothering me for?"

"Uh... I don't sleep that well at night, un." Deidara sat up in his bed and sighed, his chest heaving.

Sasori frowned, catching himself before he accidentally jabbed a tool into a puppet's joint a bit _too_ hard. His back was to the other occupant of the room, so it was unlikely the act of malice went noticed, but he couldn't help but wonder if it would have even made the boy be quiet. "Well then what the hell do you do?" he ground out carefully.

"I... I guess I can _try_... but I mean...hmm."

"Do that. If you need any assistance afterwards, I'll be sure to make it hurt." _How the hell did an idiot like you find your way into Akatsuki...?_

Even an hour after the boy had fallen asleep, the blonde's body squirmed uncomfortably beneath the sheets; to Sasori it sounded as loud as a thirty foot whale attempting to swim in the confines of his closet. Or give birth... the idea would have sent a shudder down his spine had it become too visual, but oddly enough the very thrashing that caused it also broke _that_ train of thought.

Standing up, the puppet-master silently walked over to his partner's bed in the opposite corner of the small chamber. It felt a bit awkward, being outside of Hiruko, but he would not have been able to see the blond properly had he remained low to the ground. "Maa... I don't wanna, un..."

Sasori frowned at his new partner. _If you get in my way today, I'll kill you myself. I already told Sir Leader I didn't need this._ He continued to watch Deidara silently, wondering what he was dreaming of. _What kind of criminal whimpers in his fucking sleep and chatters like a pest so freely?_ Sasori blinked, finding his hand outstretched, fingers gently twitching in hopes of gripping Deidara's neck.

"Tch." Turning quickly on his heel, Sasori felt a sudden need to be safe within the confines of his monstrous puppet. Even the sight of the sleeping blond made his displeasure rise – a feat that the puppet-master didn't think was possible.

-----

"Sasori-danna, move, un!" The puppet-master found himself hearing the words as though through a filter of some kind, his subconscious listening and responding for him. Within moments the entire platform that he had been standing on just seconds before became engulfed in a bright, fiery light and a deafening sound. _An explosion,_ he realized quickly. _Gaki just blew up this entire station, didn't he?_ Sasori thought as shrapnel began to fly past him. This... this _thing_ that the blond had created... it was chaos. Pure chaos. There had been people still alive in there, hadn't there? Sure, anyone remotely near the targeted item was killed swiftly and silently, but what about everyone else? Though their lives didn't matter in the least, they were now all wiped out surely. In the fury of the blast, all he could make out was the way the entire air became frazzled, scorched. It was powerful. What little shrapnel was making its way past the initial radius to where he now stood, Sasori could see incinerating before his own eyes.

_If that gaki hadn't said anything..._ but somehow, Sasori couldn't see that thought following through. _He_ was more likely to have remained silent; Deidara was too talkative for that. At least, that was the impression he had given Sasori... but the insane cruelty performed in this large-scale demolition-slash-execution had begun to make him think otherwise. It wasn't until the blond had caught up with him in their withdrawal that Sasori fully realized what he was dealing with. Really, the man just wanted to be back within the familiar, back among his works at home within the lair; the blast had shaken him a great deal, but he wasn't about to let the boy know. He may have always said that he would be eternal, but the sight of such destruction so close to his body, so unearthly... it left him silent.

Deidara didn't want to let the uncomfortable silence persist however, as it was their first mission and the first time his partner had seen his work. After only a moment or two, the blond boy glanced to the large misshapen individual with a stretched grin. "So?"

"So what, gaki?" Sasori mentally willed his voice steady, thankful that his shell was able to hide how distraught he had become for a minute there. Now that they were away from that scene of carnage, of death, the scorpion felt much more at ease. He didn't take the time to consider that the blonde's persistent attitude had already become familiar to him, easing the tension... at any rate, it _did_ give him a distraction and a method of venting.

Deidara sighed dramatically and shook his head, elaborating only barely, though it must have taken a great deal of effort, in Sasori's opinion. "So what did you think, un?" he inquired, his fingers teasing the string that held his little bag closed.

Sasori couldn't get a good look at the child from this side. That odd fringe of bangs was troublesome, the scorpion concluded moodily. So long as Deidara continued to walk on his right he wouldn't be able to see his expressions... but Sasori found himself abandoning that thought. _Gaki only has two expressions anyway, that blank dumbass look and that fucking grin of his..._ "...I've already got a headache, dipshit. Ask the question right or don't ask at all."

"What'd you think of my art, yeah?"

Sasori's eyes grew momentarily. _Art?_ It all fell into place now. The bag, the way the gaki had insisted on taking care of covering their tracks at the destination, that damn grin... _and 'danna',_ Sasori thought with a frown. The kid was an explosives expert, from what he could tell. What that had to do with art was beyond his own comprehension. In any case, it meant that the loud, alarming _thing_ that kid had caused was his specialty, his method of combat. Sasori grimaced inwardly, praying that his reaction was just an initial shock of the unknown. He wasn't sure what would happen, if it continued to plague him... _I'd kill the gaki,_ he thought silently, knowing the truth.

As Sasori's thoughts raced around in his head, Deidara sighed and cast a thoughtful smirk to the sky, the dust and smoke from his explosion not present where they were now. His danna didn't seem like he would be giving him any further response, but it was fine for now. They would have other missions, right? And Deidara would have the chance to improve upon his work; an artist that allowed himself to stagnant was no artist at all, anyway. Snapping the puppeteer from his reverie, Deidara suddenly asked, "You want me to make sure we don't have any pursuers, hmm?"

"Doesn't matter." _Everyone's been killed with that little hobby of yours..._ Sasori thought pensively, still too wrapped up in his mind to pay much attention to what the boy was saying.

Nodding, Deidara shoved his right hand back in his cloak for a moment, revealing a bag on his hip. Really, it seemed like there were two of those things strapped to a harness, which explained the odd-but-slight bulges at the boy's hips beneath the cloak. Watching him, Sasori wondered what the boy was up to now. Removing his hand from the pouch, it emerged folded tightly, his fingers kneading his palm for a moment. Satisfied, Deidara opened his hand to reveal a small, detailed clay bird. Lightly tossing it on the ground and raising his hand to his eye in a hand sign, Deidara grinned as the bird was engulfed in a cloud.

Sasori stared at what stood in its place; a much larger, _moving_ clay bird. It was still the same squalid earthly color, sporting hollow eyes, large hooked feet and what he could only assume were flight-capable wings. All this from the same substance that Deidara carried on his person, in that bag... _Clay explosives,_ he concluded. _That's what the bags are. But why the sculpting?_ Truthfully it was more artistic than what his first impression gave him, as this sort of thing was far more favorable then the heat and intoxicating loud, caustic creations that the blond had previously introduced his partner to... but Sasori was unwilling to give in that much to Deidara's demands, calling such wanton, short-lived toys 'art'. Hopping onto the back of the monstrous creation, Deidara gave a small wave. "I'll be back, Sasori-danna, un," he said with a toothy grin as the bird rose to the air. Without a second word the boy was gone, vanishing in the night with only a soft buzzing of the wind in his wake to remind his partner that anyone had been beside him in the first place.

-----

"So this is where we're staying tonight, un?" Deidara had demanded, glancing around. "Not shabby, I guess, yeah..." He had then flopped bodily down onto one of the beds, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "I'm beat. Do you think I could use the shower, Sasori-danna, un?" Those had been the Iwa-nin's last actions, nearly half an hour ago, and the sound of water had stopped, only the last few wisps of steam still emerging from beneath the door. Sasori hadn't bothered answering, choosing to hunch up in one corner of the room and meditate. However, the sound of his new partner opening the door did break through his consciousness somewhat.

As the blond reentered the small bedroom, Sasori glanced over momentarily. _Tch, he's still soaked,_ he noted warily, watching as Deidara wandered out with a towel tied to his waist and another in his hands. With a lazy grin the boy sat down on the edge of his bed and began towel-drying his hair, the bright yellow strands going all over. His hands were rough, but it seemed like he was being careful to avoid the left side of his face where that annoying fringe of his remained in place. Sasori thought about tearing it from his scalp, but knew it was better left alone. After a few more minutes of this silence, Deidara tossed the towel into the corner of the room and flopped onto his back, arms folded behind his head. _The brat's still wearing just a towel..._Sasori realized with a scowl. Deidara didn't know much decency, it seemed. _From what he's already said about his parents, I suppose it makes sense._

The pair had arrived safely at their checkpoint, finding a hotel to stay the night over before finishing their journey back to the lair and completing their small mission. Information retrieval... admittedly, Sasori could understand why Sir Leader would bother sending them in particular. While he had methods of getting what they wanted swiftly and silently, Deidara was fully capable of launching a full-scale assault on his own or reducing any evidence of their presence to nothing. His level of power at such a young age was promising, and the strange malice the blond bore on his shoulders, in that grin, was something almost beastlike. If any young child had a chance of dealing with the scorpion's brutal, inhumane nature... he supposed Sir Leader thought Deidara would fit the bill. Still, aside from his unnerving manner of expression, Deidara didn't really look like much of a hostile criminal madman. The long blond hair, the mirth that shined in that odd blue eye, the pathetically slender build – even if it did support decent muscle for a kid so young – Sasori studied the blond from within the safety of his Hiruko, coming to one rather awkward conclusion and decided to assert it. "Anybody ever tell you that you look like a damn girl?"

"That's the first thing you've said to me since we got back, Sasori-danna, yeah! Not very nice of you, either, un..." The blond's blue eye glittered with something between mirth and madness yet again as he cast a small, narrow grin at his partner. The face seemed to echo the wild disposition of the earlier explosion, once again unsettling the scorpion. _This is how you made it in, isn't it?_ Sasori thought. _But what did you _do Satisfied that Sasori was actually paying him some sort of mind finally, Deidara turned his attention back to the ceiling. Stretching his right arm palm skyward and balling his hand into a fist tightly, he let out a laugh. "Yeah, un. But they never say it twice."

-----

_...And the fucking gaki _still _hasn't gotten himself killed,_ Sasori concluded to himself, done reflecting for the night. Since he didn't need sleep, it was just one of the many methods he employed to pass the hours while his partner dosed. Recently, Deidara had commented that he was fifteen, leaving Sasori with the sudden realization that the pair had been together for _six years_. Due to this insight, the puppeteer couldn't help but look back on things; he didn't wish that it had in fact been six years of solitude, as this was merely something he told the blond to annoy the boy and get a rise out of him. The company had its uses, naturally...

Glancing over at the other shinobi lying a few feet away, Sasori didn't care to notice that he had long ago lost the twitch. Nor had he noticed that he didn't attempt to strangle Deidara in his sleep these days; he simply waited till the damn gaki was awake enough to threaten him with a swat or two. Deidara himself still slept with his blankets strewn around him, still tossed and turned incessantly on rainier nights like this. The bag that he had clutched so inanely before now lay at his bedside table, still within reach. If the past six years had changed anything about the pair, it was simply that Deidara was now _much_ taller than his partner, much louder, and much more resilient to the inevitable pain he surely would earn. Maturity had little to do with it, Sasori would claim, though admittedly he felt that the gaki was a bit more tolerable than before. It would be impossible for anyone to even trick the puppet-master into telling them this, as he was still having trouble telling _himself_ it was true.

These days the artistic duo of Akatsuki worked quite well together, though they argued possibly worse than before. The other members said that this was to be expected, all things considered; Sasori told them that if all things were really considered, Deidara would have already been killed and turned into a piece of his art. These sort of breakfast table chats usually ended with Sasori and Deidara alone, the others all scattering from the room with various excuses while the two continued the debate more heatedly.

Even over the course of six years, the pair knew next to nothing about each other. The amount of contact they upheld was calculated painstakingly; they lived together, they worked together. When Deidara tried to point out that he never saw Sasori actually spend time with _anyone else_, the puppet-master simply said that he hated Deidara most of all. The logic might have escaped the boy then, but he continued to doggedly and persistently stay near the other individual. The only bits of information that were exchanged happened during the brief interrogations Deidara made that first month before Sasori decided to teach him just how dearly he liked his privacy. Now the blond spent most of his breath arguing with his danna about trifling matters; the older man seemed much more comfortable with that sort of talk and engaged in it with an extreme gusto some days, though he couldn't be bothered to wonder _why_ the gaki incessantly wanted his attention.

The noisy shifting of the blond warned Sasori that his partner was either about to wake up or enter another one of his hopelessly random dreams or possibly even another nightmare. If it was just a nightmare, then he would surely have to hear about it in the morning; the kid never told him anything of his dreams. "Sasori-danna... don't..." Deidara muttered, breathing raggedly as he rolled over, his back facing the opposite side of the room where the puppet-master was stationed. Sasori allowed himself to twitch finally, but resolutely chose to ignore the strange murmurings of his partner. _Gaki, what the hell do you dream about that you have to involve _me_, dammit... Like hell I'd listen to your protests, anyway._ He suddenly found himself hoping that the blond was in fact having a nightmare, since it didn't seem likely that he would ever be fully capable of torturing him in real life. It wasn't until the boy let out a small moan that Sasori dropped the tool he had been holding, his entire being suddenly jolted. Whether he was aware of it or not, Akasuna no Sasori's carefully laid out routine was about to be completely and utterly obliterated, all because of a small and meaningless little argument... just because Sasori refused to believe that art was, in fact, 'a bang'.


	2. Books & Their Covers, 1st Encounter Re:

"Cloud Nine" [For those wondering, I'll re-state why this is called 'Cloud Nine' .;; I may have forgotten to mention it on FF, with all my double-postings... but from the moment this story begins, there are nine active members in Akatsuki and this story DOES in fact involve all of them at some point, hence the pun Cloud Nine (like a horrible comic book criminal organization in English :P). Also the place/state of mind one enters is also implied at some point, but I won't go into that. Sorry if it wasn't very clear, the title is a bit of an amusement to me... ::dies::

01: Books and Their Covers: First Encounter, Re:[visted

Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH

Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.

Author's Note: Yosh! Thank you everyone for giving such wonderful feedback ::nods:: Sorry this one took a bit to get posted, it was written up but I was a wee bit aggravated with a certain part further in. I suppose I'm satisfied enough not to keep you all waiting ::rolls:: At any rate, It's still in that timeframe the prologue ended at, and the chapter's still focused on Sasori and Deidara as they haven't gotten back to the lair. While this _will_ contain SasoDei/DeiSaso and constant stabbings at other pairings, the story focuses around that partnership and the goings-on of the Akatsuki themselves. I still feel odd about turning this all into a story of sorts, so don't mind harassing me about the other members' mentalities. I'll try to make up for it, but seeing as a lot of this is based upon some odd RPing me and my friends do... ::rolls:: I promise they'll start making their appearances in the next chapter! I can say it with all confidence 'cos it's already been written. Anyway. I hope you enjoy this installation::bows::

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.

[Final Note, I swear:P Based on the bit of comments I received, though I assume the person who originally brought it up knows what it means, 'gaki' is a name that Sasori does in fact _call_ Deidara often enough. It gets translated between 'kid' and 'brat' for the most part.

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Deidara hadn't been close enough to his family or anyone in his village to actually understand affection very well, much less something as profound as love; lust, he had butted heads with, and it was that very thing which made his mornings the worst. Being emotionally attached to someone was bad enough, he supposed. Adding in that Deidara's particular 'someone' was a grumpy, hunchbacked excuse of a monster didn't help matters – or his mood – any. Hell, when he had first joined Akatsuki, Deidara's nightmares involving Sasori had been so vivid that oftentimes he awoke with a parched throat, bruises, and even bleeding. Eventually he had become painfully aware that the majority of it _was_ actually Sasori doing these things to him, but even after the man had stopped attacking him in his sleep the Iwa-nin's nightmares persisted. He had thought that _that_ would be the worst of it; he hadn't counted on the dreams being even more torturous.

The longer this went on, the more and more Deidara began to falter, going as far as to doubt his own actions and causing the pair grief during missions. It made for quite a bit of awkwardness in the blonde's actions in general really, though he doubted the puppet-master ever even noticed such things. After all, Deidara wasn't one of his puppets; there wasn't any reason for the man to actually take an interest in _him_. If he was malfunctioning, the only real thing that could be done was to give up the ghost and die; then Sasori might actually pay him some heed and see about 'fixing' a few details. _Maybe I really _am_ mad,_ the blond reflected. _I'm jealous of a bunch of damn lifeless _dolls_, un..._ Still, the hands that could build those intricate creations and wield them with such ease were nothing short of amazing to him. _But like hell I'd die just so the bastard could pay attention to me._ Even if those puppets were beautiful creations, they would inevitably fade along with their creator; Deidara couldn't think of going out so slowly. No, he wanted to be blazing, to burn out in one last harsh flare. He had fantasized about it since before he joined Akatsuki; finding the highest form he could carry his art to, and then to die with it in its fury... for him, that was his glory.

Once, Deidara had dreamt of becoming one of those unusual puppets, his body twisted in form to that of a lifeless, soulless mimic, dancing by the other man's hands. The whirring sound the gears made had echoed dully in his ears. What task had Sasori used him for? _Everything we don't do,_ the explosive blond had thought in annoyance. Things he would never admit to wishing for, petty things, as well as the rather darker thoughts that he hardly ever admitted thinking. Products of a warped, lonely mind, he reasoned them away into a far corner. He had his clay, and Sasori had his puppets. Fleeting moments and a long drawn-out eternity... Deidara had tried to tell Sasori that eternity was nothing if it was empty; the man merely scoffed. _Without those things that come and go so fast we don't know what hit us, eternity is nothing, un._ There would be no point to forever if you didn't have something to do during it, right? The blond couldn't figure out why his partner was so hell-bent on forever, especially since he was constantly changing. That was the real kick in the ribs; even Sasori changed, progressed, erred... Eternity is filled with small, hopeless little shifts, and the puppet-master was not immune.

Deidara didn't admit this line of reasoning aloud for fear of attracting the other man's poison-tipped tail, no matter how much he wanted to point out that Sasori was in violation of his own beliefs. If he was meant to be eternal, then why did he constantly have to play with everything, readjust? Why did he feel the need to threaten the other boy with the loss of things they didn't own in the first place? Killing him? He'd die someday, sure. Deidara supposed it wasn't that far off; but in light of recent complications, the blond wondered if there was a way he could take his master with him, teach him the truth of everything in one final, louder-than-life message. He ignored the fact that it had suddenly begun to scare him to die alone in that hellfire, the turmoil; he wanted it all to be perfectly orchestrated, with that bastard beside him in shock as reality hit him headfirst, too quick to grasp. It was doubtful he'd understand, maybe even to the last moment resisting Deidara's efforts. Sasori valued his ways more than anything else around him, the blond knew that firsthand. And even during these long, morbidly drawn out fantasies that Deidara entertained himself with, he knew he wasn't ready. He hadn't reached his peak, hadn't reached his full potential. Nor had he seen the _real_ Sasori...

The thought wasn't entirely new to him. Multiple hints lay around the place, waiting to be sorted out. The simplest and most basic of them all was the fact that Sasori made the same whirring sounds as his creations at times; but Deidara couldn't use that to prove anything, really. He wasn't unintelligent; a man as obsessed as Sasori was would certainly incorporate his puppetry in his own defense. It wasn't too much different from Deidara's exploding bunshin, he supposed. It was fairly obvious that that large metal tail he was constantly being threatened with was _not_ a natural part of Sasori's anatomy; yet that one piece alone seemed to be enough for most situations... it had even been used to shield Deidara, which for some reason he never expected, always calling the last time a fluke, an odd quirk. Nothing substantial there; Sasori meant nothing by sparing him from a possibly-fatal wound. After all, if Sasori meant to save him, then did he mean to kill him himself? The man had always threatened his younger partner, always ready to take his life from him, between swatting at, abandoning him after a mission when the fight was gone to a trivial fate a handful of times, only to have Deidara show up at the lair exhausted and hungry, even _strangling_ him all those times...

And on that line of thought, the blonde's brain easily altered course; it bothered him. What had confused Deidara more than the fact that he was being strangled in his sleep until a couple years ago was that the last time he had been left with a very clear imprint of a hand. At the time, he was still a bit small, and the hand itself had probably gripped his throat tightly to leave such a telltale mark... but what struck him as odd was that it wasn't that _big_. Judging from Sasori's body, his hands should have been a good few inches larger than the impression. Deidara wasn't an expert on anatomy, but unless his danna had foolishly petite hands, it didn't make much sense to him. The mark was smaller than his _own_ hand, and even if Deidara had watched Sasori working at his bench a hundred times, something felt off.

Upon discovering this, Deidara had wandered off into the kitchen 'for a snack', only to find Akatsuki's resident hunter shinobi idly tidying up the place. The blond had spoken with Zetsu a few times before, but it wasn't often that the two-toned man was actually found in the lair; after all, he was usually the one helping Sir Leader with recognizance. "This totally doesn't look like Sasori-danna's handprint, yeah!" he had protested suddenly, jumping in the way of the odd looking grass-nin. "Danna's all big and misshapen and... and _freaky_, un!"

Zetsu had sighed, choosing instead to finish clearing the kitchen as swiftly as he could before turning his attention back to the boy. "If you must know..." he began slowly, his white side milking the situation. "**Your 'danna' is not that stupid beastly puppet.**" "Or haven't you ever seen the _real_ Sasori?" the white half had finished as the shinobi ducked through the doorway, disappearing from the room without any form of farewell.

The event had left Deidara a bit dumbfounded. _'...not that stupid beastly puppet... the _real _Sasori...'_ He considered this as he stared hard at Sasori's back. "If you... weren't so slow, danna, you wouldn't have gotten damaged, un..." he began tentatively, keeping his voice low. Sasori remained silent at this, but the blond could still feel the only barely-held back rage that graced the man.

The events that had led up to Deidara's curiosity had been well in the making before _this_. No, this incident had not been planned, though through it all the questions suddenly came flooding up to the surface yet again. _Six years and I don't know what Sasori-danna really looks like, un..._ Deidara thought desolately. Of course, he had things he refused to just outright show the man, but still!

The mission was minor, and admittedly Deidara may have gone a bit... _overboard_ with the explosion at the end but... well, he supposed he didn't really have much of an excuse. He and Sasori had a rather heated argument beforehand about his concept of art until the scorpion had attacked him just to get him to shut up, and one thing led to another... and there was no way in all the hells that Sasori wasn't going to think that Deidara hadn't attacked him on purpose!

"Shut up, gaki. I'm going to need to concentrate to repair this." Deidara bit his lip at the suddenness of the outburst; had he been rambling again without noticing?! He rarely ever did so, contrary to popular belief within the lair, but seriously... to do so was dangerous around his danna, right? To emphasize his point, Sasori removed the Akatsuki cloak from his body, revealing the strange and elaborate frame of what was simply an enormous... "beastly" puppet. Then without another word he began to climb out from the back of his ruined puppet, the practiced motion only slightly hindered by the damage that the main body of the puppet had taken.

"W-what the _fuck_?!" Deidara stammered loudly, his legs giving out as he collapsed rather childishly on the edge of his bed. The small man scowling emotionlessly back at him with one leg still inside the nightmare contraption certainly fit the way his danna always _acted_ but... reminded of his earlier thoughts, Deidara swallowed thickly. Here he was, having spent so much of his time thinking about this awkward moment, wondering how it would come to pass... and the puppet-master simply climbed out of the damned hideous puppet. It was just like his danna to completely ruin the moment he cherished the most with his calm and cold disposition; Deidara neglected to think about thanking the stars he hadn't been brutally beaten for his accident and only stared as the moment passed, suffocated in an uncomfortable silence. It was extremely anti-climatic, in one sense, yet in another... the effect it was having was a separate matter.

This could pose a serious problem. It was bad enough having indecent thoughts about his danna in the first place, but now Sasori had gone from aged and mutated to young and rather good-looking. Previously he had been disgusted with himself for even harboring any emotional intensity towards his partner, but now he definitely felt wrong! Shuddering, Deidara took in the sight cautiously. _He... doesn't look any older than _me Deidara realized immediately, wondering what that was about. Somehow, he had expected the man to appear a bit more... close-cornered. But no, Sasori even wore an Akatsuki cloak from within the puppet, flat brown eyes devoid of emotion, messily tousled red hair seemingly burning in the poor light of the room. Actually, the scorpion bore the appearance of a petite young man who had fallen asleep at his desk right in the middle of some sort of project. A burning sensation began to creep its way through Deidara's system, the acid in his stomach churning.

"So... this is the real you, un?" the blond asked carefully, fighting back the urge to stare. The scorpion's appearance may be different, but he was sure Sasori's mood hadn't gotten any better. Irritably the redhead swatted at the air before his nose as he pulled the puppet off to the side, his face still expressionless. Almost instantly the younger male had noticed the size of the puppet-master's hands, recognizing them to be the ones to cause him damage so many nights. Deidara studied the man from his peripheral vision, wondering what drew such a person to remain hidden, only chancing to emerge when the other was fast asleep. _I never would have thought that Sasori-danna looked this good, un. And why the hell doesn't the bastard age!? Hmm..._ the boy mused to himself, a hand balling into a fist at his side. _Maybe it's 'cos everyone else here looks freaky, Sasori-danna just decided to blend in, yeah?_

It occurred to him suddenly that once the ungainly puppet was repaired, the redhead would once again enter its shell. "Danna's much better to look at than that ugly old thing, un!" Deidara protested quite suddenly, shaking his head as he finally collected himself to sit properly on the edge of the bed. "Why do you have to go back in it? You look like a trash can, yeah!"

Blinking at the admission, Sasori checked his protective barrier over to completely assess the damage it had sustained. _Did that gaki just say he likes the look of me?_ he wondered inwardly, keeping the frown from appearing on his face. _Such a weird one..._ "I need to repair some of the damage Hiruko took during the assignment. It's easier to do it while I have all my tools and we are not in a rush," the puppet-master explained, trying his best to stay level.

"Hiruko is that thing's name then, yeah?" Deidara asked, trying to get any sort of conversation going; the effort wasn't so much to bury the earlier argument as it was to hear Sasori's voice without the muffled, strained effect it took on from within the puppet shell. _I'm going to hell already anyway,_ he reasoned with a small smirk. At any rate, he wanted it to be clear that he did not consider Sasori and the lump to be one and the same.

"Fighting from within Hiruko takes care of a rather notable weakness of being a puppeteer; I have no intention of being an open target." The words were clipped, almost robotic. Sasori was straining to keep his temper in check, Deidara knew, but he _wanted_ the man to attack him like this. He wanted to keep him out of Hiruko for as long as possible, before he'd go another six years without seeing the redheaded scorpion exposed.

The blond hopped off his bed and stalked over to his partner, his brow furrowed. _Danna's so damn stubborn, un!_ "I don't believe you... you just hide in there because you're afraid someone's going to break you, un! I've never even seen you out of it before, and I _live_ with you. I even had to ask Zetsu-san if the marks I got were really from you, Sasori-danna, yeah!"

Suddenly, Sasori felt as though he were reliving the moment he was first assigned his new partner. The pestering. The annoyance. The strange will to get to know someone. The off-putting sense of discomfort that the blond _always_ gave him. Even he knew that the tension between them had risen steeply recently, but Sasori didn't see any reason to find out why. "Just shut the hell up, gaki," Sasori growled, his voice taking on a sharp edge. As Deidara made to speak once more, the puppet-master spun quickly on his heels, his fingers digging into the blonde's shoulder and clavicle as he slammed the larger boy forcefully against the wall, dislodging a light fissure in the process.

Deidara bit back a yelp, trying to remain calm. His 'master' had just shoved him against the damn wall out of nowhere! It was unexpected, in the sense that he was more prepared for further vocal rebuttal or a punch to the face... but the strange expression settling across the redhead's face completely threw him. Sasori's glassy brown eyes grazed the younger man's countenance, studying him slowly from the awkward position, his smaller size clearly noticeable. "Why won't you just do what I tell you?" he demanded levelly, his hand still at the blonde's throat as he closed his eyes.

"Maa, Sasori-danna, that's not how partners work, un. It's not like I'm one of your puppets! You gotta listen to _me_ too, yeah!"

"...Not one of my puppets?" Sasori repeated softly, the edges of his lips twisting into a cruel little smile. The hooded eyes that Deidara wished would show some sort of emotion opened once more, even more desolate and cold than previously. "No, you're right. You're _less_ than that. You're completely useless; I don't have any reason to keep trash like you near me."

"I'm not useless!" the blond shouted suddenly, his voice echoing mechanically off the room's stone walls. Just as quickly as the outburst had erupted from his lungs, Deidara sucked in a mouthful of the stale air and firmly clammed up within himself. His entire body quivered with barely held outrage; the words had struck a chord within his mind. "I'm not trash..." he muttered to himself. His visible eye was narrowed drastically, that oddly dilated pupil wild.

Sasori had noted the drastic change in mood and blinked as his partner shouted down at his face, his warm breath blasting across Sasori's smooth skin; he knew this because his hair ruffled slightly and it couldn't have happened without such an action. His fingers faltered for a moment, nearly dropping from their resting place as he considered his own response. Admittedly, the blond had spunk, and he was merely toying with him... but to suddenly cause Sasori to lose his own concentration... again, and again... the redhead frowned thoughtfully. Deidara's eyebrow twitched at the stare. "What are you _staring_ at, un?"

"If you're not trash, then stay out of my business. I'm not a trash can," the redhead said pointedly, slightly reaffirming his opinion of the boy in a more roundabout manner. This got a small sneer from Deidara, though Sasori could only guess what it was about. The boy's mind was about as messy and chaotic as the thing he called 'art', a wasteland at best with sharp plants and dying creations. Still... as the boy shifted, a glint had caught the puppet-master's eye. A second hand was raised to the blonde's body, Sasori's left hand holding his captive's torso to the wall as he allowed the other hand to trail upward now, reaching for the strange lock of hair that had been so obtrusive to this point. Deidara recoiled, further flatting himself against the wall. However, Sasori brushed the fringe aside, revealing a strange mechanical appliance covering the left side of the blonde's face. The thoughtful frown grew now as the slender fingers lightly graced the contraption's surface. Deidara's one visible eye stared, transfixed by the smaller figure's gaze. The puppet-master was mesmerized by the object's existence, his rusty-hued eyes silently flitting from it to the dilated blue orb shivering before him. _It's ill-fitting,_ he gauged instantly, seeing how the object was causing discomfort in the area around it. _It's been here quite some time, if he grew out of that mold. It needs to get refitted. But how did he end up with this?_ The scorpion at least knew enough of their missions' results that he could make a fairly easy guess that it wasn't the result of any one of them.

"Deidara..." The tense air the past few weeks, the stiff movements, words... they were both frustrated, Sasori realized. Neither of them had previously brought up a single desire or feeling that was boiling to the surface now, but it clearly wasn't new. He wasn't entirely sure why it chose to happen on this mission, during this incident, as there had been plenty of rough moments before. Whatever the case may have been, the malice and confusion hanging between them was thick, venomous. Arguments had consisted of loud, empty words, small stabbings at only the skin of their character; neither knew anything of the other, just the daily toil that they shared for six entire years. Knowing someone so well in method and habit, yet knowing nothing behind the action, the glance; motivations had never been questioned aloud.

Sasori had known Deidara from the mere age of _eight_, giving the boy only a minute amount of history that he wasn't present for... but he knew nothing of what drove the boy to his madness, or what continued to fuel that fire, living his new existence as he did. Six years, and he hadn't even bothered to try and catch a glance of what the boy hid behind this awful swath of hair; Sasori merely fantasized of its brutal removal. To the blonde's defense, Sasori had lived quite a few years more, completely shaping into the man he was now years before their first encounter. Was that the driving reason Deidara claimed to respect and admire his superior, eventually succumbing in their fights simply because there was just too much of Sasori that he couldn't grasp at, couldn't begin to fathom? It was obvious that Deidara had concluded that Sasori was not the large thing he travelled with, but how long had Deidara been wondering what was really there? Sasori had never noticed any such curiosity, but then again, the man hardly paid any attention to what the blond chose to do. If anything, he was the one who enforced the strict rules of the dance the two performed daily, allowing them to blindly continue on in solitude side by side. As it was now, the unknown appeared ready to swallow them whole, and it was only translating into a bitter anger without understanding.

"So what if I'm a fucking freak?! You hide inside a damn hunchbacked troll, un!" the boy spat, his lone visible blue eye narrowing yet again in cold anger. The hand moved faster than Sasori anticipated, gripping the redhead's wrist tightly. The outburst only made the puppet-master blink for a moment, suddenly doing something he hadn't planned on. Withdrawing his outstretched hand from Deidara's face, he swiftly brought it and the attached appendage towards his chest, to the inside of his cloak. The blonde's face shattered and flushed as he tried to comprehend what the man was having him do. Whatever it was, what his skin brushed against was anything but what he would expect; his jaw dropped slightly. "Sa… S-sasori-danna, what is..."

The large hand recoiled from the body, releasing Sasori's wrist in the process. This being done, the scorpion's eyes gently rolled back from the blond, focusing on the large puppet abandoned on the floor. With an annoyed sigh he walked back to his creation and sat heavily beside it. And that was that.

Deidara didn't know how long he had been standing there like that, or when he had started shivering. But his skull felt as though one of his bombs had been set off inside him. There was something wrong with his danna, more than anything he had said in angry, loud words, or in joking taunts. What his hand had felt was not human. The man had ended the argument in his favor and gained the blonde's silence; they had been rapidly approaching a breaking point, a point where change was inevitable, and Deidara knew just how much Sasori hated that sort of thing. But it all paled in comparison to that _feeling_. Blinking rapidly, Deidara finally worked up the nerve to robotically walk the three paces to his bedside before collapsing face-down on the bed in a heap. He wanted to yell; he wanted to fight; this silence was worse than anything. What was wrong with the other male? A million questions raced inside his mind, but there was only one answer among them. He knew what his danna looked like... _But what the fuck _are_ you, yeah?_ The boy mused in annoyance. _Shit... I yelled at him again. He's going to hurt me when we get back to the lair, isn't he, hmm?_

"Deidara." The blond cringed, a small wince escaping his lips. _That damn voice of his... Why don't you just go and fucking die already, danna, yeah?_ "Gaki."

"Hai." Deidara groaned softly as he realized he responded much easier to the only-slightly pet-name-and-not-an-insult-for-once Sasori long ago gave him. It was normally used whenever they were having their artistic debates, but lately it seemed to be the only thing the other man would call him. Was it because he kept missing his name and not noticing?

Sasori's nose twitched irritably. His partner had spaced out again; the boy was never prepared for anything. Refitting a panel within Hiruko's body, the redhead commented, "We'll be leaving before dawn. Be ready by then or I'm leaving you behind."

"Hai..."


	3. Within the Lion's Den Lies Sin

"Cloud Nine"

02: Within the Lion's Den [Lies Sin

Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH

Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.

Author's Note: O.o;; Well, I was _very very happeh_ with all the responses this seems to be getting. And therefore I'd like to apologize for the delay . Between preparing for the local con and having a few parts of it blow up in my face, being sick, and suddenly not moving... its been an eventful month. (Not to mention alllll the stuff between the anime and manga keeps making my brain run in circles.) But I figured I should spit this out before my birthday, I've been chewing on it long enough and have waaaay more after this written. The problem with this particular chapter was of course, the fact that many of the other members are now involved. And I didn't feel like I did them much justice. I hope to amend that as they're all quite wonderful. I still need to reread this chapter as it now stands in this file but I figured I'd post it for the hell of saying I _have_ been alive::bows:: Once again, thank you all so much for your reviews!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.

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At the lair. _Again._

Deidara sighed, wondering if things would just go back the way they had always been. _Sasori-danna hasn't said a word about yesterday, un..._ he mused as he began digging through the fridge, assuming his partner would continue through the room and go straight to their chamber.

Due to Deidara's assumption, Sasori managed to escape the blonde's notice just long enough to hide his look of annoyance. _Is there always someone in this damn room?_ he wondered coldly as his eyes found Itachi sitting at the small four-person table that was situated within the 'kitchen' portion of the room. He couldn't remember if it was true, as he had never even bothered to glance around the room every time they returned, only going straight into their personal chamber and remaining there until Sir Leader called them for the next mission.

The puppet-master sat down at the small table without any verbal complaint, opposite of the Uchiha prodigy. Itachi hardly glanced at his guest before stirring more sugar in his tea, not really concerned. He had long ago realized that if he wanted to have tea in the mornings, he would have to cope with Sasori and Deidara's brief-yet-damaging visits. The blond always seemed to have a horrible want of snacks or food; it was hard to say whether or not Sasori actually allowed Deidara the time to eat when they were on mission, as the other man didn't like stopping for long. Still... Itachi smirked. Sasori's missions, no matter how trivial, had in fact taken longer to complete when he had been given this boy for a partner. _It's only safe to assume they're stopping for Deidara's sake. Sasori hardly needs anything to keep going._

"Is there any particular reason you're not inside that puppet of yours, Sasori?" Itachi commented smoothly, keeping his eyes focused on his beverage in the event a combination of speaking and staring would set the puppeteer in some sort of rage. After all, whether he was aware of his actions or not, this was certainly unprecedented.

Flat brown eyes stared into nothing for a moment, processing the inquiry slowly before blinking owlishly. _For having been like this for so long, it's hard to understand how he even manages to make expressions as cheaply as _those "Hiruko was damaged during the mission, so I saved him away to be serviced when we returned."

"Was it that bad?" Silence. Itachi knew the question was poorly worded for gaining a verbal response, and he had intended it to be such. For the puppet-master to have made the return trip without the puppet casing so early in the morning, before any sun or tell-tale eyes could touch him... the damage must be pretty infuriating. _He probably didn't want to hide within something so obviously shattered. There's a matter of pride at hand, I believe. Though I'm not following why he's being so curt about it all... nor why he's still _here

Itachi's eyes flitted quickly over the redheaded man's shoulder to where his partner had nearly dropped whatever it was he was digging from the freezer as soon as Itachi had made his inquiry. _So it was Deidara's doing, then._ "May I ask what happened?" A poor feign of innocence; in Sasori's current state of mind it was debatable that the redhead would even catch it. It was early in the morning; Itachi was always a bit odd in the mornings, to be sure, but quite frankly this was going beyond normal oddness. This was him simply taking his time gently poking the puppet-master's weakness.

Sasori's placid demeanor suddenly tightened, giving off a rather grim frown. "I hesitated," he said, his voice hardening. "I don't remember you talking this much."

The Uchiha shrugged slightly, ignoring the obvious hostility now. The puppet-master's most-used creation was currently out of commission due to some action of his partner's, but he was covering for it; no amount of hostile behavior from Sasori would result in anything, if the cards remained in the open. "You haven't bothered to check in with the rest of us in the past few years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you have already gone back to your chambers to begin reparation?" Another sip of tea and then a well placed casual glance to the exit of the chamber before looking back towards the other occupant of the table...

Sasori opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again, frowning. However before he could do anything else, a hand clamped down heavily on his shoulder. Turning his head just enough, the redhead frowned deeper as his partner used his body as a means of support and leaned forward to glare at Itachi. "Don't pester Sasori-danna just because he chose to stay out here for once, un!" And then without taking a breath, the blond released Sasori and his face contorted to something unreadable. "Ano, you don't have to keep an eye on me, danna, yeah? I'll go right to the chamber when I'm done; I'm not going to run away from whatever you're going to do to me. Hm."

Sasori blinked owlishly, his jaw slacking like one of his puppets. Raising an eyebrow at this, Itachi sipped his tea to hide the small triumphant smirk that graced his lips; the puppet-master was beginning to slip up these days, it seemed. Reacting to something so honest was really quite an unusual spectacle. The onlooker couldn't help but wonder idly about what had happened to cause such a change. "Gaki, you damn fool, why would I be waiting for you?" Sasori managed to growl finally, his fingers twitching. _And now you can't just get up and leave,_ Itachi thought, bemused. _Well, no one ever said that Suna-nin were very diplomatical._ The drama this morning was turning out to be much livelier than he had anticipated when he arose.

The noise of everyone else slowly filtering into the chamber interrupted whatever it was that Deidara opened his mouth to say. He glanced agitatedly behind himself to find a tired, violet-eyed man frowning from the door. It might not have been the _last_ person Deidara wanted to see, but he had been hoping to leave the common rooms before Hidan emerged.

"God_damn_ I'm fucking sore," the newest member of Akatsuki muttered, his look of distaste as he glanced around the room completely unhidden. Collapsing onto the rather abused couch whose back defined the kitchen area from the rest of the common room, Hidan groaned loudly. "I never want to go into another bounty station _again_! Those places are friggin' nasty!"

"You might as well just stand outside of the next one then," Deidara commented. "Kakuzu's always in and out of those places, un."

"I'll keep that in mind, _Deidara-chan_," the other male snorted.

Deidara's lip curled, but with a glance at Sasori, he decided it'd be best to keep silent. No telling if the other man would start a fight, and it was unlikely anyone present would stop it until Sir Leader came in, if he did at all...

The placid raven-haired male eyed the exchange momentarily before sighing softly, closing his eyes as he inhaled the aroma of his tea once more. Hidden behind the cup he muttered, "More on the way." Sasori raised an eyebrow at this, but the Uchiha wasn't one to be wrong when it came to noticing chakra signatures. Even if he didn't have to make it habit to recognize chakra and use it for most things as Sasori did, the sharingan was quite a perk.

Out of the handful of people who represented the organization 'Akatsuki', the man who entered the chamber next was quite possibly one of the original members. It was honestly hard to say in some cases, but the nuke-nin who hailed from Grass country was always around. Everyone remembered him, though it was rare to see him unless he came to clean up after a battle. A favorite of Sir Leader's, the hunter-nin never went very far without his subordinate. The klutzy antics of Tobi brought forth a drastic relief of Zetsu's own personalities, much less the odd effect it would play on the other members. What Sasori couldn't be bothered to figure out was why they were around at all that morning, with so many missions coming to a close, frowning as Zetsu sidled up to the table and stared down at them all in mild annoyance. "You didn't happen to bring anything back with you, did you?" "**I'm hungry,**" he added, gesturing to the group huddled around the table. Tobi came down the hall at a quick dash, bursting through the entranceway and skidding to a stop beside his superior. Though they couldn't exactly _see_ signs of his exhaustion, the man was panting for breath.

"I'm sorry, Zetsu-san! I didn't mean to make you lose your catch like that, really!" he exclaimed energetically; Sasori closed his eyes to block it out, but he could still hear Itachi's sigh. Deidara on the other hand simply turned back to dig deeper into the refrigerator once he realized that Sasori was refusing to leave still. Tobi's enthusiasm for friendliness aside, the blond knew his own patience for the others would wear thin soon; his thoughts were still focused on what awaited him back within his own chambers. "Why don't you just eat something in here? We can go back out afterwards and find you something! I'll help."

The two-toned member of Akatsuki sat down at the small table now, his partner simply standing beside him; currently there wasn't anything better to do than lounge around in the chamber it seemed. "We'd be better off just waiting a bit. Kakuzu was the one assigned to buy groceries. He'll have bought everything at its greatest discount, naturally..." Zetsu commented. "**Fucking scrooge.**"

"Amen to that, dude," Hidan muttered from his position on the couch. All that could be seen of the religious zealot was his hand as he waved it dismissively in the air. The drawling tone hinted at his physical weariness, but it didn't seem that he was falling asleep either. Itachi paid him no heed; it wasn't foolish to avoid going back to his own chamber yet even if he _was_ sleepy, as Kakuzu was likely in a foul mood.

Itachi's wandering thoughts were interrupted as the man next to him gestured to him. "Where's that shark of yours?" Zetsu demanded calmly, his look of amusement not sliding past the raven-haired man.

"It's likely Kisame is still asleep; we just returned from our mission last night and it took quite a bit of time getting back. At any rate, he hasn't left the chamber yet."

"**Pity. He's more fun than you.**"

"Deidara... what the hell are you eating?" Sasori had missed the others' exchange and was now regretting his decision to turn and look at his partner as he stared blankly at the Iwa-nin. For being the youngest member of the entire organization, the blond certainly didn't try to hide it. _I've been sitting through all of this the entire time and the dipshit's got a damn ice cream bar. Why did I bother?_

Deidara frowned at his partner before returning his attention to the oddly mutated thing that had once supposedly been a delicious frozen treat. Digging his nails under the edge of its thick gooey skin, the blond carefully began picking away at it, peeling the layer back as though it were skin free of boiled flesh. As he pulled at the substance, it stretched for quite some time before breaking with a resounding 'smack'. Holding it up to his nose, he inspected the thing for a moment before he suddenly recoiled, nose scrunched up in disgust. Still stuck to his fingertips, Deidara held the vile thing away from him and glanced back at the others in the room finally. "This stuff isn't food, yeah!"

"...Normally, a fudge pop wouldn't constitute as food anyway," Itachi pointed out. "Then again, you probably suffer due to your partner's ailments, I imagine."

Sasori twitched visibly, glaring across the table at the Uchiha before looking over to Deidara. "Gaki, there's actual food to eat in the fridge for once, why don't you just eat that?"

"This stuff is so _sick_, Sasori-danna, look at it!" the blond demanded, apparently ignoring his partner's suggestion. He stepped over beside the redhead and held out his fingers, working the gooey substance between them as if signaling for money. It rolled over his skin as a solid before suddenly breaking down into a shiny offensive slime. "Kakuzu-san thinks we can eat this crap, un?"

"I told you already, he buys food when it's ready to expire. If you intend to eat the food in the lair then you need to eat it while it's still... mostly safe or not eat at all. You _know_ that, it's been like that since you were picked up. Stop wasting your breath complaining already." Sasori turned away from his partner, not wanting to look at the boy.

Deidara glared and threw the frozen mess into the trash venomously, apparently now fixated on that one piece of food. He didn't make a move towards the fridge, only placed his hands on his hips and stared sharply at his partner. "I'd rather starve than eat this, un!"

This display caught the others' attention easily enough, but it wasn't much to look at. The only particular difference was Sasori's appearance; a typical argument such as this seen around the lair would have had Hiruko's tail at Deidara's throat the moment that final speech impediment graced his lips. Instead, the redhead frowned, his eyes closed. Deidara wasn't being defiant for the sake of his hunger, but instead simply because Sasori had said something condescending. _Again. _A childish gesture to keep the attention of a higher figure, a want to impress or at least not be looked down upon by your superior; Itachi hadn't felt the need to do such a thing in years. He handed his tea cup to Tobi since the male offered to refill it, awaiting the redheaded scorpion's departure. He already had more than enough reason to be angry with his partner, after all.

_More petty arguing... _Sasori thought with a sigh before rising from his seat. "Fine, you idiot. We're going back to our chambers then." His fingers found their way around one of Deidara's wrists and latched tightly, twisting as he stood and pulled the larger male behind him in annoyance. The move had been quick and the fingers pressed awfully against Deidara's wrists as he gritted his teeth. He wouldn't yelp just because the bastard hurt him, he was already expecting this sort of thing anyway, wasn't he? He did provoke the man after all. It was awkward to actually be dragged down the hall _by hand_ though... _He's squeezing me too damn hard, yeah,_ Deidara thought angrily, completely missing the fact that he had missed out on his chance to eat as his partner dragged him out of the room.

Once the two had vacated the chamber, Hidan frowned. "That Sasori guy's a freak, man." His voice was muffled beneath his arm as he flopped it across his face to block out the light. Despite being fairly new, the violet-eyed man had already seen one or two eruptions within the lair's halls to know how the pair functioned. The same applied to all the others, he supposed, but he had never seen Itachi and Kisame fight... or Zetsu and Tobi. And damned it all if he had yet to see the leader of the whole thing and _his_ partner in person to know if they fought like that; all Hidan knew was that he hated Kakuzu, he hated Sasori, and the damn Leader. They were all bigots, hyped up on some weird trend that would damn them to Hell, and he was glad for it. It was possible that his irritation stemmed from the fact that he had just returned from a "small" assignment, but it was rather far off and they had pulled an all-nighter to get back in time since it was supposed to be brief and his partner had diverted the route in order to 'raise funds'. Only, the other members had seen Hidan long enough to realize that the individual was easily irritated and foul-mouthed when it occurred. At any rate, they didn't expect this Hidan to last too long; his partner had a tendency to lose partners quite easily. If he tried, Deidara could even remember Sir Leader mentioning something about it when he first was assigned to Sasori, though it was a trivial detailed buried in what soon became daily toil.

Glancing at the retreating figures, the grass-nin commented, "It's unusual to even see him." Zetsu blinked for a moment before he continued, the second voice darker and heavily clipped as usual. "**Gutless weasel...**" the other half threw in, ignoring the cold stare it received from Itachi. "He prefers to hide in his shell, you may have encountered it once or twice within the lair."

"Speaking of freaks..." the religious man muttered to himself, shaking his head as he suddenly sat up and tossed his stare over the back of the couch. "How hard is it for you to get through one day without acting like that?"

Tobi blinked from behind his mask, generally a move that the others recognized by the way he slightly glanced from side to side, shoulders drooping. "Maa... "

-----

Not even a minute after entering their chamber, Deidara spoke up. Not to say that Sasori had been expecting silence as he sat bodily onto the edge of his bed, not bothering to remove the cloak. Even if he was going to wander around the lair without Hiruko present, he'd be damned that he go any less dressed. The blonde's voice drifted across the small chamber as he removed his cloak and shoes and tossed them at his workbench; the object was unrecognizable currently because earlier that week Deidara had been mixing clays again, attempting to make something better, more powerful, more 'artistic' in his own words. Sasori still venomously refused to call the result anything remotely artistic. "Ano, Sasori-danna..."

"What is it, gaki?" The blond had his back to him, Sasori noted, cleaning up the remaining mess. Dully he watched the boy move, how his shoulders rotated in that particular angle to compensate for his weak arms, how his back heaved when he sighed. Despite the obvious lack of nutrition within the lair, Deidara appeared to be healthy albeit a bit on the thin side, and Sasori supposed that was a good thing. He didn't want to be out on a mission only to have the boy collapse for one reason or another; he wouldn't know what to do for him at all, other than abandon him and continue onward. The idea unsettled the man; had he ever seen Deidara ill, come to think of it? The boy's personality was too robust for it to be very noticeable, he mused.

Finishing rearranging his things, the blond sighed softly, a smirk finding its place on his lips as he glanced at the clay mess on his workbench. "Why don't you ever eat anything, un?" Deidara asked carefully as he began to wipe down the battered surface.

"Don't ask stupid questions just because you didn't bother to eat something." Sasori frowned; he hadn't really been prepared for the question, even though he knew it would one day arise. After all, Deidara didn't know how to shut up, and recently he seemed to have picked up that annoying habit of questions again. Leaning back against the wall his bed lay against, Sasori allowed his eyes to close as he willed himself to remain calm. _I can't just lash out at the gaki for his curiosity. It'd be worse if he trusted his surroundings, it'd be more work to keep him around_ Well, that was odd. Sasori's nose crinkled slightly; had he just implied he was concerned for the boy's safety? No, that couldn't have been it. If Deidara were to die, then he'd have to be replaced. And Sasori doubted the next partner would be any better, seeing the choices of subordinates available for upgrade as well as the recent edition of the Jashin-obsessed freak into their midst.

When he opened his eyes, Sasori was staring directly into the Iwa-nin's face, that fringe and the unusually dilated eye only inches away, the boy's warm heavy breathing blasting across his features, ruffling his red hair. Swallowing back his surprise, the scorpion felt his body shift slightly, shoving itself further into the wall as he shied away from his partner. Deidara frowned momentarily before that sickening grin resurfaced, his eye glinting. "Danna spaces out too, hm."

"Gaki, I don't need your shit. And why the hell are you on my bed?" Sasori demanded, his face betraying no emotion. He watched as the blond boy's eye blurred for a moment as it lost focus, glancing around before trailing down to where his hands lay pinned on both sides of his partner. He had walked over to protest to his partner, only to see that Sasori wasn't paying attention... Then he had hopped up without much thought, assuming that the redhead would instantly react to such actions and shove him back and begin his shouting... but instead the man had seemed to slip deeper into his mind, leaving Deidara at a loss to explain his actions now.

Still, the grin didn't falter; Deidara had learned to play this game at least as well as his partner. "Maa, Sasori-danna looked dead for a minute there, you hardly breathe, you know, yeah... Just had to make sure, un."

Raising a hand to his forehead, Sasori sighed, curling his fingers in his bangs and pulling slightly. "Gaki."

"Yeah, Sasori-danna?"

"Get off my bed. You're getting clay all over it."

"Then danna is afraid to get dirty, yeah... I'll keep that in mind."

"For what, when you clean my parts? Get to sleep, dumbass, we have an errand at dawn."

Deidara flushed suddenly before hopping back off his partner's bed and diving towards his own and hitting it a bit too hard. Burying his head under the pillow, the blond softly cursed the other man for his odd choice of words, and the fact that he had to say such things as Deidara practically had him pinned there... Squirming uncomfortably, the boy wondered if the man even understood half the things that went on through his head when he pulled stupid stunts like that, but Deidara quickly reasoned it away. Sasori wouldn't bother to understand, whether he did or not was pointless worrying about; even if he _did_ say anything, the redhead would probably just tell him that he shouldn't be getting himself into those sort of situations in the first place, call him 'gaki' and demand to be left alone. Deidara wondered briefly if Sasori's delayed reactions meant that he could get away with a few things before whatever punishment would occur, because he'd always be up for it for something anyway and if the other man was just treating it as any other stupid thing Deidara did, then it was possible... He glared for a moment. Even after last night, things seemed to be the same with the other male. Admittedly, Sasori hadn't been as hard on the other boy all day...

_Another mission already, too, yeah..._ It must have been why Sasori spaced out, he realized; there wasn't any time for the male to speak with their superior so far. It was always a bit odd to suddenly come into communications with Sir Leader, but the man apparently only bothered Sasori with the information this time. His stomach growled loudly for a moment, causing Deidara to wince and curl into a ball and face the wall. _Damn arrogant bastard... made me leave the kitchen before I got to eat, un. Got me all freaked out and didn't even _do_ anything to me, yeah..._ he thought blandly, choosing to take a small nap and ignore the pangs assaulting his stomach for the time being.

-----

_Shit. I overslept, yeah..._

Deidara grimaced as he sat up, glancing across the small room to see Sasori staring fixatedly at Hiruko's still broken form. He wanted to ask how it was going, but that would require gaining the other man's attention and possibly reminding him of the pending punishment...

Silently the blond let himself into the bathroom and turned the shower on its hottest setting. He wanted the steam, the heat. His head was killing him with the dull roar, only intensified by the horrible urges his body kept sending his way, the curling in his stomach and practically screaming pain racing through him. Deidara sighed, not letting his eyes stray from the low ceiling. "Sasori-danna... why are you so fucking frustrating, yeah?" he breathed, his lips barely parted. Careful to avoid getting the left side of his face too wet, the boy stood beneath the showerhead, his back firmly pressed against the slick tile. The scalding water cascaded over him, leaving fresh red streaks along his shoulders and the rest of his body as it burned into him on its way to the drain. It hurt intensely, but it also distracted his mind from other discomforts. At least, it always had before. But the last few nights had left Deidara with something even more awkward and consuming than the dull ache he had grown accustomed to; now it was accompanied by a fierce, wrenching feeling within his entire body. During missions it toyed with him, throughout the faked daily toil around the place... but Deidara could bear all that. It was the night that scared him, when he was confined to close quarters with his danna. Especially now...

Deidara winced. "Damn, un..." he muttered despondently, forming fists with his hands at his sides. He couldn't let his thoughts stray back to the unusual man on the other side of the door; doing so only made that pain grow. _But Sasori-danna's just so..._ Deidara thought sadly. Biting his lip, the blond attempted to ignore his body's reactions. _Cold...yeah,_ he finished, instantly forgetting his vow to not think of the man. The feel of the other man wasn't even that of a lifeless corpse, but of something that hadn't been alive _previously_. It nagged him, toying with his thoughts. He knew he had already been upset then, and that he wasn't thinking clearly and it wasn't like he got a good feel... His mind was exaggerating things.

The blond had been running his hands along his abdomen as he thought, attempting to enjoy the feel of the water as it fell over him. Between the constant hunger that plagued him as well as any injuries or roaming thoughts he may hold, the Iwa-nin couldn't relax. Deidara sighed heavily, wanting to escape his current life for even a moment within any form of distraction, but an image of the small redhead flickered dimly on the back of his eyelids as his subconscious played its games with him as it tended to do lately. His breath hitched slightly as he winced. The moment had come and gone quite suddenly without event, far below anything that the blond wished for, craved; everything left his mind a dull, lifeless void. Lifelessly, the blond brought his hands away from himself, the pain intensifying again. Self-satisfaction could only do so much, really. It felt even emptier than before, now that he knew what it was he wanted, knew the look of it. Knew he couldn't grasp it. Growling to himself, Deidara raised his face to the faucet and let the still-hot water wash over him, covering him, now fully neglecting to give special care of the contraption over his eye. Ever since he had seen his danna's true self, he had been unable to do anything to satisfy his own needs. Listening to the other man's complaints, an outsider would probably never notice that Deidara had changed, molded to his danna's criteria. What little bit of the blonde's original personality that had endured was fading quickly.

His life was still ultimately out of his own hands; he still clutched at someone else's hand for help, still wanted what he couldn't gain, couldn't take. It all paled in comparison to being within the presence of the other man, and Deidara hated him for stealing the focus of his own _life_. What was rightfully his to mold, to control, to enjoy and misuse and twist... the puppet-master seemed perfectly content in denying him, even within his own fantasies. All of his inferiority seemed to be highlighted by Sasori's mere existence; his personality, his face, only seemed to add gravity to it all. Deidara curled his lip as he considered the truth. Yes, he hated his danna, dearly so... but that wasn't just it. It couldn't be; he had to go and _want_ the bastard, the one who made him feel worthless. "It's disgusting, right, Sasori-danna? You've said so from the beginning, yeah..."

-----

Sasori glanced over to the bed across from his own, idly wondering how long it would remain unoccupied. _Gaki went into the shower three hours ago..._ he considered, his eyes now trailing over to where a thin stream of light illuminated the floor below the bathroom door. It was still several hours before he intended to leave for the mission, but the boy didn't normally stay gone for such a period of time.

Hiruko lay before him, its angry face glaring up at him. There was still some rather extensive remodeling issues to take care of, Sasori mused. It was doubtful he'd manage to finish his repairs before the time Sir Leader had allotted them to prepare to leave. This meant that he'd have to check on Deidara, because it would be the blond taking care of the majority of the actual mission; Sasori did not wish to be the first resort in such an exposed state. Sighing, he climbed to his feet and walked over to the bathroom door. He eyed the steam still eddying in small swoops beneath the door. Three hours and the water was still that hot? With one deft rap of his fist against the door Sasori called out, "Gaki." Silence.

The blond had a serious want for privacy, and as Sasori preferred to keep his own, he rarely broke that trust. However, it was the boy's habit to be in and out of these late night showers within the hour, which had long come and gone more than once. He tried once more, still receiving only the sound of running water as a response. Without any further ado, the puppet-master reached for the knob and opened the door in an easy swing, glancing forward in bored detachment before blinking at what his eyes caught.

The blond was collapsed in a rather wretched pile at the foot of the shower, his breathing shallow and reedy, skin inflamed from the constant lashings of hot water it received. It was little wonder Sasori had not received much response; Deidara was unconscious. Grimacing for a moment, Sasori swiftly reached in, his arm hidden inside a towel he quickly grabbed from the hook as he shut off the water.

Sasori, towel still in hand, gripped Deidara by the shoulders and gave the blond a shake, hissing at the youth. "Dammit, you fucking idiot... What were you thinking?" he muttered angrily as he lifted the boy into a sitting position on the tile. The blond began to come around finally, whimpering at the sudden and painful awakening he received as Sasori's fingers dug into his shoulders, his battered skin already screaming. However, he was too disoriented for Sasori's own pleasure, and the redhead attempted to drag the boy onto his feet. Deidara struggled feebly as his partner picked him up, shouldering the weight as he propped the boy alongside him and flung an arm over his shoulders. "Dipshit... you're bigger than me. Don't think I like having to carry you around like this." He considered using puppet jutsu to get the boy back into the other room but it was awkward enough without sending the boy flying around in the air, wet and nude.

Weakly the blond tried to brace himself, placing the palm of his hand flat on the wall beside them, but he nearly collapsed again. "Gaki! Just... stop moving, dammit," Sasori growled tersely as he supported the boy against his own body and dragged the dead weight over to the blonde's bedside. With a great show of annoyance, Sasori dropped Deidara onto its surface and tossed him a towel at his face. Without another mutter, the man sat down hard beside Deidara and began fussing with the towel he had brought for himself.

Deidara watched in fascination as the redhead's face remained passive, though his actions suddenly became pensive. Sasori began drying off his arm vigorously, dragging the towel within his sleeve instead of simply removing his cloak. After a few minutes of drying himself off, the scorpion's flat brown eyes cut sharply over to the pale boy beside him. "You need to dry off your hair or you'll just make yourself worse."

The boy tried to comply, but just the act of movement made him faint, his vision darkening as he attempting to shift and move his arms over his head. Twitching at this, Sasori threw his towel on his lap while he clutched at the towel over his partner's head. "You can at least do enough to take care of your body I assume," he demanded of the boy. "We have a mission in the morning and you're not going to skip out just because you were too stupid to take better care of yourself," he murmured softly, dragging the blond nearly into his lap as he took his fingers to Deidara's scalp. "I won't have Hiruko with me, you'll be the one carrying out the brunt of it."

Closing his eyes, Deidara allowed his entire body to relax; it was rare holiday, this. He must really look bad, if Sasori was going out of his way more than once in the same day... _I can't even remember him doing it before at all, un..._ Vaguely he dried himself off as best he could, avoiding quick motion as it sent his entire blood swimming. He couldn't even feel Sasori's fingers through the towel, the pressure was so soft as the towel was worked around his hair. _Danna probably just doesn't want to touch me like this, hm._ Whatever the case, the soft rhythmic motion helped ease Deidara's earlier headache away, the painful pulsing of his temples was now forgotten.

A small moan slipped through the blonde's lips before he could stop himself, but it was too late. Sasori's fingers froze, convulsing as he abruptly stood up from the bed, only barely making sure Deidara didn't fall over. Glancing up into those bored eyes, Deidara frowned.

As Sasori turned to walk away, Deidara reached out and wrapped his fingers around the man's wrist. Frowning, the redhead turned to look over his shoulder at the disheveled mess lying there. "What?"

"Don't leave me, danna..." His voice refused to come out the way he wanted it to, or anything remotely close. No, it sounded like he was handing out an order; or it would have sounded like that, had he been able to breathe properly. At best, the attempt ended in a half-hearted whimper. _Fuck..._ Deidara mused. _I really am bad off, un..._ Sasori attempted to walk off again, but the blonde's grip on his wrist tightened and caused him to stop once more. It was certainly hurting Deidara more than it would the other male, especially since no matter how hard he squeezed the harder Sasori _felt_, especially given Deidara's hands.

A moment of silence past between the two males, heavy with something Deidara couldn't identify. Sasori refused to turn and look at his partner sitting there, instead only speaking to him from over his shoulder. "I've told you before, you're better off alone. Though a fool like you would only die quicker." A few moments later the scorpion conceded, stating, "I'll only be at my workbench, gaki. It's not like I'm leaving for the mission. If that were the case I would have just left you in there."

_Cold..._ The word echoed dully inside Deidara's mind as he tried vainly to focus on the retreating back of the other man. _Why are you so cold... hm..._


	4. Hairline Fracture Faults on You

"Cloud Nine"

03: Hairline Fracture Faults on You

Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH

Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.

Author's Note: Allo again! A bit faster this time around to make up for the previous round. Hopefully since I have over half of the next installment written I won't waste time ; Thank you once again for all the alerts/favorites/etc and the bit of review that came through, it's very very helpful, honest! The fact that I keep getting such response is driving me to try and write faster . ; and I think it's quite obvious that I could use all the boost I can get in speed! Heh... ; At any rate, I went back and edited some grammar/spelling errors in previous chapters as well as bolded the other half of Zetsu's speaking, as I have it in a spiffy font on my file and forgot to indicate it on the uploaded one . ; That's fixed. Other than that, this chapter is a bit of an awkward one. I'm not entirely sure people will understand the transition a few pages in, but if you DO get lost, please feel free to prod at me so I can make it better for you!!! Cheers mates, and as always reviews ARE very much welcome and encouraged!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.

-----

Inwardly Deidara wondered if missions could 'sometimes' go awry, then why did the bloody things always seem conscious enough to screw up at the worst possible moments, the worst possible days. Everything had gone great, perfect, the way it had been laid out... except for... _that_...

"You're never _prepared_ enough, are you?" Sasori growled, slapping the back of Deidara's skull in annoyance, the impact harshly firm for such a small man. It was a more deliberate physical contact that the blond was used to, having gone on mission after mission with the large and deformed Hiruko puppet. Direct insults and hits from a much more human Sasori caught him off guard just as much as they riled him up more. _He_ had thought it went well, until Sasori had suddenly appeared saying that he had nearly ruined their catch with such a large display of his art.

Deidara gritted his teeth and snarled at his partner, his eye aflame. "You didn't say anything about having to _recover_ something, just that I had to get rid of the guards and the damn barricades, yeah! You even said the entire compound could be dealt with!" It was bad enough that he had actually injured _himself_ in the assault, just a few minutes earlier, but now Sasori had to go and be angry with him too. _This really isn't my fucking day, is it, hm?_

Eyeing the other boy in dull annoyance, Sasori rolled his shoulders. The indifference in those flat brown eyes seemed to slap Deidara across his face, making his blood boil. This man, his _partner_... was not, admittedly, a very _good_ one. They may have worked together for six years, but it was becoming increasingly apparent within the past few days just how willingly Sasori would destroy each and every little thing Deidara _thought_ he knew, had come to rely on. "At any rate, I went ahead and made the retrieval, so we're done with this mission." Sasori turned away and closed his eyes, as though contemplating their next move or his next scathing remark. However, after another minute of silence, the redhead simply cast another empty look to his partner, the motion hideously slow and drawn out.

It happened instantly. One moment Sasori was standing there, blank face glancing up at the blond; the next moment he was withdrawing his hand from Deidara's sternum, a strange and horribly uncomfortable hollowness accompanying the motion as all the air in the blonde's lungs shot its way out of his mouth. Deidara blinked, collapsing to his knees as confusion masked his face, overriding whatever he pain he felt – the blond was used to _that_. Sasori sighed and shook his head at the boy. "Don't assume that I cannot fight just because I do not have Hiruko. I simply do not think it wise to go into battle without all the necessary precautions."

Wincing, Deidara glanced up at his partner. The wind had been knocked out of him with a _scroll_, he realized. The offensive object was gripped territorially within Sasori's right hand; he had been so lost in thought and wondering what the man was thinking that he completely missed the swift motion. It made sense that the man wouldn't want to touch him, or punch him directly; his hands were precious to his work, but... For the amount of effort that had to accompany the blow to make it so effective... _Shit. He's pissed... _"So you had me... fucking clear the _way..._ for you, un?" he demanded, his breath rasping as he struggled to regain composure. Gingerly he placed his hand against the shattered wall for support.

The edge of Sasori's lip raised at some thought, a brief flicker before suddenly his foot landed a direct kick into the downed male's sternum, grinning maliciously as though he were enjoying the contact. The blond felt his spine hit the wall painfully, something cracking against the pressure from his partner's foot. _Fuck. _Fuck_. This isn't good. I can't... get up..._ the blond realized. "W-what are you... up t-to now... hm?" he breathed, his eye focusing dimly on Sasori. _Dammit... if I hadn't gotten caught in that last explosion I would have been able to do something about him,_ he thought bitterly. He was still a bit lightheaded from passing out the night before, on top of it all, but he had hid the weakness away from his partner... though apparently not well enough. Sasori had simply stated that Deidara could kill everyone located on the compound before disappearing, and so when the explosives expert went to deal with the last evasive little runt in the bunch, only to get caught and slowed down briefly… It hadn't been much, but it was enough to stun him since he put a little more effort into killing off _that_ one.

Now he had little to no clay, and while the redhead had attacked him before, he hadn't expected him to do it now. _Bastard... he's going to abandon me out here, isn't he, hm?_ It occurred to him vaguely that Hiruko could have absolutely everything to do with this; Sasori had been acting weird since then and suddenly everything began to fall quite bitterly into place. Even exposed as he was, Sasori had gone and dealt with more activity than he would normally allow, observing the blond, probably considering what would be the best resort; yes, the other male intended to do him one back for the previous mission. _So last night was just..._ he flashed back, wondering. He found himself glaring hard at the small man before him, bitter reality overriding his overzealous thoughts: it was hard to say _what_ this was about, honestly. It could have been a million things, it could have been nothing. Sasori's namesake was a rather treacherous little creature, after all, and if anyone within Akatsuki knew it, it was Deidara.

A sudden blur of movement, and then pain erupting even more brilliantly in his chest, at his sides, everywhere, as though he had been lashed at severely with a metal lash. Deidara's body shuddered violently as he sputtered, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, dripping down his cheek, his arms. The blur assimilated into some sort of piping, a tube; stars were sparking so harshly across the blonde's vision that he couldn't tell where Sasori had pulled such a weapon from before it disappeared from sight. _Ugh..._ Deidara may have made a mistake previously, and he may well deserve some sort of punishment and had even gone to the lengths of _asking_ for said punishment... but this was too much. If the other man thought that he could simply kick him when he was least expecting it, leaving him to _rot_...

Raising an eyebrow at the mess before him, the smaller male smiled. It was a thin, grimly satisfied expression, out of place and yet suitable on him all at once. The boy had taken enough damage at this point that it would take him a great deal of time returning to the lair, and during that time Sasori mused he could have the majority of Hiruko set straight. Of course, that was if the gaki could make it back within three days... Still, there was the matter of handing over the package to Sir Leader, too. Turning away from his partner, Sasori only made it a few steps before Deidara managed to speak, his voice low.

"I'll get you... bastard, hm..."

The redhead blinked, the murmur echoing dimly in his head. Turning to get a final look at the battered mess he had made of his partner, Sasori sighed. "What was that, gaki?" _It's not as though the paralysis effect takes hold on you these days, you'll make it back before three days. You always do... but I'll listen. You never can tell, right? And I'll be able to finish Hiruko in the meantime. And things can go back to _normal_ like –_

There it was now – that toothy, maniacal grin. If there was any one thing Sasori hated most about his partner, it was that unstable, crazed and wholly-excited grin. "I'll get you, yeah," the blond repeated, louder now, his breathing still heavily labored but he seemed to have forgotten the injuries. Wrinkling his nose at the statement, Sasori watched as Deidara spat out a mouthful of blood before continuing, not bothering to try and stand anymore. "When I get you, you _freak_, you'll make one hell of a work of art, un. I'm gonna get it just right, so you can see it." The boy's voice was steadily growing in volume and strength, his azure eye glowing intensely. "_BOOM_, yeah," he shouted, a pleased look settling on his face despite the blood and the bruising that already had begun to form.

Sasori scowled at him before turning away once more without giving a response. He kept his pace brisk, as he didn't want to seem to be running from the horribly adamant _child_, but he desperately wanted to put as much distance between Deidara and himself as possible. _Damn him..._

Upon the sudden shout, Sasori had jumped, actually startled into movement, almost instantly making to bolt away. _And by a mere wretch all battered on the floor,_ he thought angrily, his fist shaking at his side as he hurried along. The gaki couldn't have known just how truly shaken the puppet-master had become then. Unlike what all his scathing remarks and arguments said, Sasori knew and understood how dedicated Deidara was, and the sight of how impassioned the tirade had made the blond left him fearful, so much that upon hearing the shout, his... heart, his _being_... had jumped. He still wasn't sure if it were possible, or if he imagined the effect, but whatever the case Sasori felt flat-out jolted. Ever since the first time he had gone with Deidara on a mission, the scorpion had been left uneasy when it came to the bombs, the explosions, the devastation his partner could leave in his wake. If the blond wanted to, he could certainly use one to bring severe harm to Sasori, even just by simply setting one off within their chambers.

It was at times like these that the man was thankful he didn't sleep.

-----

Deidara coughed, wincing as a sharp pain sprung up in his chest. "Maa... must've broken a rib or two, un," he mused weakly. Still, his recovery time was improving. A year or two before, he would have had to wait for Sir Leader to contact him about his whereabouts and eventually have Zetsu or that damn subordinate Tobi sent to grab him. And while Tobi was certainly an energetic and friendly individual, he listened very well to his superior, and Zetsu was another story entirely. _That_ one probably took his time, hoping for a meal. No, there'd be no time to wait now.

Gingerly he attempted to climb to his feet, careful not to use his hands. His danna had really been in a foul mood this time. Wondering briefly what internal musings of his master he had interrupted, the battered boy smirked. If he was seeing any sort of change within the man, it was that the redhead was becoming more and more easily driven to anger when Deidara was involved. Deidara snorted. "Some progress, un," he muttered, only to burst into a painful bout of hissing and repressed coughing. No matter how much the small redhead had angered him this time, no matter how well Deidara intended to make good his threat... Sasori didn't have to know _how_ Deidara intended to make good on it, right? And in order to get that, he couldn't exactly afford to enrage the man at every corner.

He had made the mistake that Sasori was strictly a long-range fighter, and at that only a threat when equipped with a puppet; the man was small and fast, and for what it was worth, _lethal_. Only the fact that he had been accustomed to being attacked by his partner helped Deidara avoid the blows before; he would have to learn to cope with this form of Sasori's as well. _Of course, once Hiruko's fixed it's unlikely danna will bother coming _out_ of him..._he thought, annoyed. _Why's danna so damn reclusive anyway? Didn't get enough love as a kid, hm?_ Deidara mused, smirking. _That'd be typical of Sasori-danna, yeah. _He's_ certainly not _good_ with kids..._

"Hmm. Well, time to get going, yeah." Deidara glanced at the embroiled sky for a moment as he glanced around. He had enough clay for another bird, at least; it would keep him from wasting time and energy trying to travel several hours on foot, as well as help him catch the scorpion before he even made it back to the lair. "No way in hell I'm going to let Sasori-danna get back to that damn puppet of his, but I guess I gotta behave if I want to distract him, yeah..." The blond knew how to get at his partner's nerves, but he also had a fairly decent idea of how to _avoid_ it. Of course, there wasn't much fun in that, but he _wanted_ something from the other man and sometimes you had to play both sides to make ends meet. Sasori considered himself an artist, and _all_ artists had egos to tend to...

-----

It had been two and a half days since Deidara had caught up to him just outside the lair, smirking and silent. _Silent._ That was new. It was also more annoying and devious than Sasori thought it could possibly _be_; he had been imagining silence now for what seemed like his entire life. The redhead was finding that it wasn't at all as pleasant as he had hoped. Orochimaru had been silent, often enough. Then again, Orochimaru didn't make it a habit to annoy, enrage, or toy with Sasori's mind. Well, he did, but that was when he bothered Sasori at all, which wasn't often. Sasori set his jaw as he continued to try and reshape a panel for Hiruko's inner hollow. Orochimaru at least, had no interest in a damn thing Sasori did. ...That might have been the annoying bit about the man, even if everyone annoyed Sasori. For someone who wanted to obtain all knowledge of the various jutsu in the world, the snake didn't seem to give a damn about puppet jutsu, or Sasori's own specialty for that matter. He belittled it, in that sense, making it out as though it were nothing at all, not worthy for his studies. Deidara at any rate _respected_ Sasori's jutsu, though a whelp's admiration was hardly satisfying. _And it's not like the gaki really understands it, anyway..._

Maybe Orochimaru was worse than Deidara, in some respects. Sasori glanced over to the blond for a moment, only to find that smirk still present as the boy stared hard at him, sitting as he did from the edge of Sasori's bedding. The fresh binding wrapped securely around Deidara's torso and the bruises were the only signs of the scorpion's brutality that remained, and they didn't even appear to mar the blonde's body, much less bother him. No, it was the one thing Deidara _had_ done in the past few days: the boy hadn't strayed from their chamber once, not for food, company, or fresh air. He'd get up, change his bandages in the bathroom, and then return to watching Sasori work. He only slept a few hours at a time during this stint, which made it rather hard for Sasori to administer the antidote to the blond unknowingly; he rushed to it the first sign of the explosives expert's heavy slumber. His partner's body was already heavily impaired without that blasted poison rushing through his veins, and while he knew the paralysis no longer took hold, he didn't feel like finding out if the _other_ effect was the same.

The scorpion felt his fingers twitch and refocused on the work at hand. No, Deidara was definitely different from Orochimaru, but the gaki was much more _human_ than the other man, that was all.

He hated it. Sasori absolutely loathed humanity. It made a person frail, weak, useless and utterly unwanted. There was nothing to gain from it, really. Yet day in and day out he watched as others clutched at their pointless existences and literally broke down at the thought of it being ripped from them.

He enjoyed it when his marks did this, however; after he was done with them and added their previously-lacking body to his collection, Sasori could entertain himself knowing he had made them something much more superior. Bemoaning their life and then being something wholly better and different, against their own wishes... It wasn't as though they'd appreciate it, so he never bothered _explaining_ it to them. To anyone, actually. The redhead knew better than to assume anyone else would understand his ideology, the truth of things...

Yet that damned partner of his was again staring hard at Hiruko. At one point the day before, Sasori had questioned the blond as to why he had to sit on _his_ bed and watch him, receiving only a rather odd expression between a sneer and a smirk. He made no move to force Deidara to move, not wanting to make things even more frustrating than they already were; instead he continued to attempt to put up with having to sit across from the blond and work, the boy in his line of sight. It was that, attempt to move him, or sit on the same side so he wouldn't have to _see_ the damn gaki, but that was more awkward than it was worth, the space so little he'd be sitting directly under the boy. "Didn't have enough fun destroying him the first time?" Sasori asked, not bothering to check the other's reaction. The scoff he could hear as the blond reached to touch the puppet was enough.

"So this used to be a _man_? He wasn't very good to look at then, yeah..." Nearly three days of silence, and the first thing the gaki said was insulting, naturally. Still, Sasori had effectively broken the boy's little spell.

"His existence is beautiful now," Sasori muttered to himself, eyeing Hiruko with a blank fondness. 'Blank' meaning that he appeared to be casually speaking as though forced to comment on a friend's child; Deidara knew how to distinguish Sasori's various tones, and over the last few days had a fairly good grasp of the 'expressions' his partner made but this one was made with such distance that he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

"He's _still_ not very good to look at, un," he shot back. "And it was a man." Sasori chose not to respond as he tugged half-heartedly at Hiruko's humanoid arm. Deidara would assuredly continue onward regardless; he _wanted_ something from Sasori, right? "It doesn't disturb you that you ride inside of another man? A corpse?"

Sasori shrugged, the motion nearly lost from within his cloak. "It's not a corpse or a man, gaki. It is a puppet. It's no different than wrapping yourself in that towel when you come from the shower." Deidara's face flushed quickly at this comment, but the redhead continued onward unabated. "And besides, a puppet can't feel these things, Deidara. Hiruko no longer contains the key factor in what originally made it a man, and therefore cannot be considered a corpse of one either."

"Feelings work both ways, Sasori-danna. I mean, sure, if it's a puppet it's not going to stand up and _complain_ about you using it for whatever you please, yeah... but you've got to have some sort of feelings towards it. _You_ are a man, even if Hiruko isn't, hm."

The silence that followed somehow became even more awkward than the previous three days' worth. Deidara scratched at his nose as he studied the other man's movements, realizing that he had somehow agitated the redhead. He had intended to agitate him, didn't he? It just felt odd to see the results, probably.

Of course, it wasn't just their ideas of art that were radically different; Deidara knew well enough to know that their ways of thinking were the cause of that. Choosing for a slight change of direction, the blond shifted so that he was leaning against the wall but still eyeing his danna from the end of the bed. "Living people are puppets too you know, it's not too hard to do. You mean physically speaking, yeah. I'm talking mental. That Itachi-san does it, genjutsu and all sorts of stuff." Deidara scowled. "I hate it, un."

"I know you hate puppeteering..."

"No, I mean I hate what _he_ does." The statement was rushed, hardly hiding the boy's feelings towards the Uchiha. Deidara glanced at the other male with just a flicker of his eye, the strange angry fire present again as his fringe swept across his face. "You defeat a person before taking them over, yeah? He just takes over."

Sasori quirked an eyebrow at his partner. _This _was new; Deidara hardly ever continued any sort of conversation about Sasori's art, especially in a philosophical sense. He simply stated that he respected his danna's opinion, but that he himself was superior. _He's trying a new game, it seems… _ Though admittedly, the Uchiha was involved now.

Outside of their daily sufferings within the lair's common chambers, it was exceedingly rare that Deidara ever encountered Itachi Uchiha, and when he did it was in the presence of many people. Sasori was actually quite impressed with the blonde's ability to suppress said rage, especially during meetings. He was studying the other male, certainly, but they all knew why. Deidara, if anything, hated Itachi more than he claimed to hate Sasori; it was the genius of the Sharingan that broke him as a child when they brought him to Akatsuki in the first place. Kisame and Sasori had been present, all the while Kisame wondering why Sir Leader had chosen one child to overcome another, but the act had completely thrown Deidara at the time. Sasori had gone as far as to argue the point with Sir Leader, not wanting such a young child for a partner even after the boy had been brought back with them, but such was the past.

Sasori's lackluster history with Deidara aside, there was the conversation at hand to contend with, if he wanted to be able to concentrate on repairing his puppet. The scorpion ignored the fact that he had simply been... poking and prodding at the thing for the past few hours, not actually advancing at all. _If only the damn gaki would _go away _for a while, I could..._ "That is his method of fighting."

"You earn the right to take their existence! Hm," Deidara said venomously, his arms gesticulating to further prove his point. His teeth were bared and his expression was something close to artistic achievement, but staring up at him the redhead could only see the boy's ignorance.

Sasori himself had never seen the process of his art in such a light, nor did he intend to change it now. Still, the boy's idea of his art amused him, even if the blond had entirely no clue what was really the matter at hand. "And if I did the same to you?" he questioned, chancing to glance and see the reaction; the explosive male was proving to be quite the entertainment factor now that he had gotten over his vow of silence.

Deidara glowered down at him, his lip curling. Ah, now there was the Deidara that Sasori knew; _there_ was that unbridled malice for his art, his ideas, himself. It was amazing what three days of silence could do to a person, really. While Sasori somehow seemed actually _interested_ in what the blond had to say, Deidara was altogether more _expressive_ than he had been at all recently. _All he's been up to is confused little mutterings and squeaks, nothing like his usual loud and abrasive edges._ "I would make it so you didn't have anything to work with, un."

It was a relief, the puppet-master realized. The way Deidara had become recently had begun to unnerve him a bit. "I don't need _much_," Sasori admitted, his tone lightening like a parent having a secret laugh at their child's youthful ignorance of the world. He was making the boy distraught, and it was cheap entertainment for now. _There it is,_ he mused, suddenly realizing what it was he was trying to find in Hiruko's arm that made the movement gawky. "It's not like I'd be making you _special_, after all."

"Hah!" Sasori blinked owlishly at the loudness of the outburst, the blonde's grin more ominous than that of Kisame's. "There would be nothing left of me, nothing at all. Not even a hair. Sorry, Sasori-danna, you won't be getting me, yeah."

"Really?" Sasori responded, his interest not seemingly perked; he had already masked his initial shock and moved on to Hiruko's busted launch mechanism in its skull. "I'm not entirely sure what I would use you for in the first place, honestly. I was under the impression that Iwagakure had quite a heavy handle on genjutsu and ninjutsu, which you rarely use unless you're appallingly on the losing end of a fight... and it's not as though you have much strength in the way of taijutsu either."

"Tch. That's not art," the blond scoffed, folding his arms across his chest lightly. His right leg was tapping Sasori's bedpost rhythmically as it hung there, playfully close to Hiruko's poison-soaked tail.

"No, it isn't," Sasori agreed. "But neither are your little flashy pop shows."

"Or your puppets, danna, yeah."

Sighing, Sasori shook his head. "Baka... you just agreed that yours is not art either with that statement." The satisfied redhead snapped Hiruko's jaw shut, the final test of its mechanism complete. _Considering how easily the gaki managed to destroy Hiruko from such an odd angle, if I could fit it with a sort of guard on its back..._

The puppeteer's internal musings were interrupted by a rather loud plaintive growling coming from the direction of his bed. Frowning, Sasori looked up as Deidara entwined his arms around his middle and muttered something under his breath, but otherwise made no move. Sasori quirked a small glance to Deidara's stomach and frowned. "That must be a great nuisance to you," he considered.

"Not like you'd know, Sasori-danna, yeah," the blond muttered darkly as he ducked his head, hiding his expression. He made no move to look at his partner as the man climbed to his feet and turned to his desk, grabbing something before walking off to the bathroom. When Sasori returned, he had changed cloaks.

"We're going," Sasori announced, glancing at his partner. At the notice, the blond jumped fluidly from Sasori's bed and stepped over to his own desk. However, as Deidara's hand reached for his usual cloak, Sasori shook his head. "Don't bother, just grab your spare cloak and get rid of the hitai-ate."

Deidara frowned, glancing at Sasori to realize that the other male was in fact wearing his spare already. The aforementioned garment was normally used during ill weather, but if a member wasn't going far from whatever lair they were currently residing in, it was policy not to wear the Akatsuki cloak. "Where're we headed, hm?" he asked, quickly donning the dark, unadorned cloak and rushing to Sasori's side as they left the chamber. The redhead was slow to answer, instead waiting till they were clear of the lair; Deidara could tell the other male was _going_ to answer, he just wished that his danna would, for once, not take his damn time with it. Raising a hand to shield the glare of the sun from his eye, Deidara grimaced. He had always been rather light-sensitive, but the soothing darkness of the cavernous lair they preferred to reside in made the change seem more dramatic.

"You haven't eaten in three days," Sasori stated finally, several minutes into their stroll, as they finally cleared the 'hazard' region surrounding the lair and could tread on more common passageways.

"Two."

"Two and a half." Sasori cut a neutral glance to his partner. "Regardless, you haven't eaten _since we returned_. What did you eat before the mission?"

Deidara blinked, his confusion at the sudden prodding of his master obvious. It hadn't occurred to him that he had gone _that long_ without food, especially when he swore not to eat the entire time he gave Sasori the silent treatment. "Hm..."

Sasori sighed, tapping his forehead as he closed his eyes. "You didn't."

With a snap of his fingers, the blond artist turned to his partner with a look of triumph. "The fudge pop, yeah!" only to nearly turn green and add, "...yuck. Hm."

"You didn't eat," Sasori repeated readily after waiting through several minutes of silence. Inwardly Deidara wondered how Sasori could remember what they were talking about, when he did things like this. "...And before that?" Silence again, and a nod from the redhead which caused Deidara to chuckle weakly. "We were on mission, so you probably only picked up a meat bun or something this past week, at best."

Deidara gawked for a moment, all the recent events of the past few days hitting him in the face. Passing out, the pains, feebleness, hell, his _vulnerability_ to his own damn bomb and Sasori's abuse... _But I'm used to going long periods of time without food, yeah,_ he reasoned inwardly. _...Sure, this is a bit longer than I've had to for a while, but..._

"It's unhealthy to starve yourself more than necessary. Anorexia is considered a disease, you know." Deidara's nose scrunched up but he once again chose to remain silent. The puppet-master was behaving oddly; really only the _manner_ of the conversation was normal – the subject matter was rather out of their usual league. It was a bit awkward, trying to find a response. Pausing for a moment, Sasori stopped in his tracks and nodded to their left. "We're here."

Still confused as to what was going on and why Sasori was suddenly speaking to him about his eating habits, Deidara glanced at the establishment they had stopped in front of. It was a small shop, but quite clearly a _noodle_ shop. Blinking at the sudden comprehension that Sasori had led him straight to a place to eat and the oddity of it all, Deidara was forced to snap back to reality as Sasori shoved a bit of money into his hand and frowned.

"Order something and be quick about it."


	5. Noodle: FriedLimpFresh

"Cloud Nine"

04: Noodle:Fried/Limp/Fresh/Stale/Crimped/Long/JustEatIt.

Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH

Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.

Author's Note: A few things to keep in mind. One: I'm delirious at the moment. n.n;; Seriously, I've been pretty messed up on medicine all weekend and the lack of sleep is catching up to me as I write this. I figure I'm going to regret posting this chapter now, in a slightly muddled state of a mind, where it probably needs major editing done in the first half (I'm assuming X'D). I can't help it for now, as I want to be able to show you guys it does exist. ...that, and I tend to majorly edit posts anyway. It's an OCD thing... So. Basically what I have for you as of now is the current version of Chapter 4 of Cloud Nine. I hope you enjoy that, and forgive me if something really horribly odd happened I'm unaware of. I've been typing out of my mind and I can't see straight anymore to edit it up. I think I did the basic fix-ups... After this is going to be another Author's Note for what I will be tweaking in the storyline. As of this moment I can tell you that I will be poking scenes involving Sasori's height as I've said, the 'yeah's' Deidara perpetually spits out... as well as a few odd annoyances of mine. Also: Hidan makes a very, VERY minor appearance in this chapter. I may end up adding to it. Not sure still, as it wasn't originally in there; every time I tried to write a bit more to it, my mind shuddered. I apparently can't really handle him when I'm about to crash and burn X'D go figure. But I'll keep you guys posted with that oh so lovely note of mine (OCD demands I do that for my sake -.-;) You don't have much to lose by poking it when it's posted, because it'll be coming before the next chapter is posted.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.

-----

It had taken every once of his nutrition-starved being for Deidara to curl his fingers around the money and step into the shop, Sasori following close behind. Deidara's mind was swimming, completely at a loss to explain what was happening. Not bothering to walk with his partner to the counter, the redhead instantly claimed the booth adjacent to the entrance, sitting down at the edge of the seat; he obviously intended this outing to be brief. _Not to mention he's not eating still, hm._ One day, soon, Deidara knew he'd be able to get the damn truth from the arrogant bastard, but until then…

He smiled lightly at the middle-aged woman manning the counter and then glanced to their menu, his eye scanning it hurriedly. "Can I just have the house yakisoba, yeah?" he asked carefully, his fingers tentatively trying to keep the money away from his palm. He'd have to clean his hands soon, or he'd forget about it. _Yeah, right. Like I'm gonna forget that I could get diseased just by touching this damn money, yeah. Especially if it was something from one of Kakuzu's bounty gains, yeah._ Once, the blonde's mind had wandered off, debating whether or not his partner was a health hazard. Realizing the truth about the outer shell, he was a bit more relieved: Sasori was actually pretty well contained from within Hiruko, and was probably as much a hygiene nut as himself, looking at it all now.

"Doesn't your... friend want anything?" the hostess asked, cutting an only slightly odd stare to the redhead sitting pensively at the booth. _Does Sasori-danna _always_ sit weird like that, yeah?_ It occurred to Deidara that when Sasori could be seen sitting at all from the awkward position on his bed, kneeling on the floor, or sitting like he was now while in the common area... it did look pretty amusing. _Like he broke his tailbone, yeah_ Deidara considered, attempting to steal his thoughts in a neater direction, considering he was about to eat and his danna had treated him and therefore should not be subject to indecent thoughts for at least a moment. _His fault, taking me to a noodle joint, yeah_

"Ah, no, danna doesn't really eat normally, yeah." Deidara didn't exactly think it was wise to tell these strangers that he had in fact, _never_ seen the man eat, or the fact that until a few days prior, he had thought him to be a monstrosity and that while he was certainly prettier to look at now, Deidara was debating if the man had actually been _kinder_ within Hiruko, though since he was buying him food...

"Danna?" the woman repeated, lifting Deidara from his rambling thoughts. "That little one is your danna? That's an awful cute thing to call him..." she commented, mostly to herself. Beckoning to a younger woman in the kitchen area behind her, the hostess gestured to the redhead near the doorway after whispering in her ear. It may have been her daughter, from the look of them; Deidara wondered what their reaction would have been had they known that both males were S-ranked criminals out on a stroll for noodles in their quaint little family parlor. Whatever the case, the girl turned to look at him.

"I'll have your order up in just a bit. You and your boy aren't staying put are you? He seems a bit on edge." He couldn't help but choke slightly before attempting to stifle his snickering, praying to whatever god came to mind that Sasori was out of earshot of _that_. Not like the man would _understand_, but... "He must get embarrassed easy, if he even gave you the money _outside_," the younger woman remarked with a smirk. "Boys are always funny like that. Be careful, eh?"

Nodding vaguely, Deidara finally found what he was looking for. "What made you...?"

The hostess wandered to the back to prepare the meal, leaving what was now clearly her daughter to handle the conversation and handle the tender. The girl, frankly, had to be _older_ than Deidara, but either way he was a bit curious as to what she had seen. Shrugging, she counted out his change before saying, "Well, my mother says she saw him shove money in your hand and then stalk off to sit. You're both fairly young and pretty and out on a walk on the edge of town for food? That's suspicious enough, trust me. Sorry if my mother blushed or did anything to make you leery, she's nice. A bit daft these days, but nice."

Deidara nodded again, this time a bit more certain. He could _smell_ his food, and this random stranger apparently had labeled him and his danna as something that he may never actually _achieve_, but it was amusing all the same to allow her to go on with it. Eyeing the amount of change she returned to him, the blond turned over his shoulder and shouted back to his partner, "Ano, Sasori-danna! You sure you don't want anything at all?"

"No, I don't want anything, gaki. Hurry up."

"We'll take it to go, ma'am! Got stuff to do back home, yeah," Deidara said with a rather snarky grin tossed back at his frowning partner. If the gossipy little women in this shop were suspicious, he considered that he should give them something for their troubles. The look he received from Sasori was rewarding enough, knowing the women would probably be chattering about the encounter to each other for the next hour or so, if they were anything like the women in his old village.

He quickly brushed that train of thought aside however, since thinking back on the people there always put him in a foul mood. These women weren't so bad, really. At the worst, they were probably just plain _bored_.

As the artistic duo began their return trip to the lair, Deidara hummed a small tune as he gripped the take-out bag resolutely. His earlier plans to lighten up Sasori appeared to be working, and on top of that he had earned a meal and they were walking along in comfortable silence. The pair had already left the sight of the village behind and was passing into the borders of the lair's watch zone when Deidara heard the faint mumble of the puppet-master. "Nani, Sasori-danna, yeah?" he asked, startled from his thoughts.

Sasori blinked for a moment, staring at his feet as he walked. Depending on the tone of voice and expression, this could be viewed as the redhead having angry thoughts or just being contemplative. Deidara was pleased to find it the latter, not wanting the scorpion to spoil his mood. "What was that woman staring for?"

"Ah!" Deidara gasped, stopping for a moment to stare at the other. The blond hadn't expected _that_. Now he had to wonder if Sasori had in fact heard them, and if he would have understood... It was doubtful, but there _was_ still a lot of Sasori that Deidara couldn't figure out, after all. Either way, the smaller man was now looking up at him expectantly; he honestly had no idea what was going on. Deidara felt something in his abdomen shift at this; his mean, crusty old master sure did act and look half the _blonde's_ age at times. "You don't know, yeah?" Deidara asked finally, blinking widely before a smirk slithered its way onto his face. "The almighty and all-knowing Sasori-danna can't understand what a little daft old woman's talking about? Yeah," he teased.

The scorpion cast him a look before allowing his eyes to once again trail to the left, away from Deidara in a look of bemusement. "She thinks we're partners, yeah," the explosives expert said as he began walking again, this time at a much slower gait.

"But we are." Sasori moved forward as well, now staring blankly at the blond.

"Nuh-uh, danna, this is different, yeah," Deidara protested, tapping at his temple with his free hand.

"Is it?" Sasori frowned and looked away from the blond, choosing to return his focus to his feet. "You're not making sense, gaki."

"Well, I don't_think_ it's this, yeah." Deidara kicked at a loose stone within the path before shrugging. He knew what _he_ felt about the word, but now that Sasori had said that... it was a bit confusing, wasn't it? They were far closer to each other than with any of the other people they dealt with, and Deidara had heard some pretty nasty stories about relationships to know that it wasn't a fairy tale. But something was missing here, wasn't it? The blond couldn't be sure. While Sasori didn't actually grasp the concept – which would normally be that 'missing' thing – due to the man having the emotional complexity of a wet rag, Deidara didn't think he would behave much differently _had_ he understood. "Ah well. We're partners, danna. I guess it doesn't need to be complicated with extra words and meanings, Yeah."

"Idiot," Sasori scoffed, continuing onward.

"...You don't like women, do you, Sasori-danna, yeah?"

Sasori scoffed, the way he tossed his head to the side a clear sign of sarcasm. "Whatever gave you_ that_ idea?"

Deidara grinned. "You get touchy any time one comes near me. And I don't think I've ever seen you talk to Konan." Shrugging, Deidara laughed. "Kakuzu even spends money on them when he's bored with the usual, I think. So it's gotta be something, yeah?"

"You're rather self-centered to think my actions are tied in with your existence, gaki. And when have you ever seen that woman bother to talk to anyone herself?" Deidara scowled at this, even though it was true._Can't danna take a fucking joke once in a while? _He ignored the voice in his head complaining that he had in fact said such things to see _how _Sasori reacted to them. Deidara should have known the other male wasn't much good for these sorts of word plays. "We don't have time for women." The scorpion's lip had curled at this statement, his eyes narrowing. Not in anger or annoyance, really, but he quite clearly wasn't fond of the subject. What on earth had made the redhead so dead-set on his view of women as a whole? Deidara couldn't imagine that he had had a... bad incident... with one. Sasori hardly had a head for some of the activities the others joined in on.

It was probably what made him nearly as reclusive as their leader.

"Yeah." The man really didn't have a clue the things he said, Deidara understood that. Still... there was some comfort in his brutal honesty, wasn't there? It wasn't like he was _lying_ when he said things, so it more or less depended on _what_ he said and the blond could decipher it from there. "Sasori-danna?" The redhead continued to plod onward, not particularly showing any sign of having heard his partner speak out. "How about I shut up now, yeah?"

"...That would be the best thing you've done all week."

Zetsu glanced at the retreating backs of the pair and frowned. "Those two are behaving oddly." It wasn't entirely appropriate to say that he was conveniently around. In fact, it'd be far more appropriate to say that the two-toned individual with an odd growth around him had been nothing short of _stalking_ the duo. He had his reasons, as well as another's for doing this, but at the moment his own priorities had gotten the best of at least a part of him.

"**When aren't they?**" commented the black half finally. "**This is annoying. If Sasori kills Deidara when we're not nearby, he may use his body. There won't be any left for us.**"

"It's pointless to bother following him anyway," the white half argued. "He didn't kill Orochimaru."

"**Orochimaru is better than Deidara. And Orochimaru knew not to bother Sasori when he got in these moods. There's no reason to be here if Sasori is going to act this way, we might as well get the mission over with.**"

"I wonder how long this will last..."

"**Not long.**" The answer was curt, for sure, but both were in agreement for once. Deidara inevitably _always_ did something...

"Zetsu-san! Zetsu-san!" Tobi waved maniacally to the missing-grass nin, both arms flailing above his head as he tried to hurry over. It was a wonder he ever could keep up with the other man, considering how different their means of travel could get.

"**Why are we letting him...**" the black half growled in annoyance, but the white one cut him off.

With a quick glance to his subordinate, the remainder of Zetsu replied, _You _know_ why._

Tobi finally caught up with the ninja in time to be told to catch up to the artistic pair and give them the word. Zetsu wasn't staying around because 'he had other things to do and the subordinate should know that by now'. Tobi just grinned behind his mask and saluted smartly before dashing off again, his master already disappearing into the surrounding fauna. Despite how much of a show he made of panting just moments ago, Tobi tore after the other members of Akatsuki with a surprising speed. All things considered, he had plenty of energy to burn it seemed. But if you were a member of Akatsuki, you wrote that off to Tobi's exuberance. He had a lot of that, too.

It didn't take him long to catch up to the artsy arguing that floated through the air rather weighted. _Silence must be impossibly awkward for them._ He could take care of that for them, he mused. Slowing down a bit, Tobi trotted a hundred or so yards behind them, listening intently as the words escalated and fell flat depending on who spoke, interrupted, outburst, reprimanded, complained, and insulted. It was odd to see it between two... well, the situation was still debatable, and Hiruko _was _a human once (just apparently not a very attractive one!), but two somewhat civilized and cultured humanoids. The only other pair it more hazardous to rush at than this was Kakuzu and Hidan – and Tobi still did it, to a degree. They weren't much fun in the end, so he chose to bother the rest of the members at his leisure, or Hidan when he wasn't with his violent partner. While Sasori and Deidara could certainly cause some damage, they were more torturous and psychologically wounding than the physically maiming and killing zombie twins. Together, the two could actually be a problem for the quick and wily Tobi!

The man smirked at his own sarcasm, mocking himself the way everyone else chose to do. Hey, if they had fun with it, all for it. Tobi would have his fun too.

The problem with following Sasori and Deidara was a relatively simple one. They walked together.

Normally an outsider would wonder why Deidara didn't just make one of his birds and take off, leaving the other to take his time as he pleased. This was odd enough considering that it was in fact the _redhead_ who was the more impatient of the two, while the blond only appeared to be tense and flustered; really, he was, but that was usually due to his habit of imagining the things they passed and what he could do to make them altogether _better_. Excitement and impatience can often be mistaken if the onlooker isn't careful enough.

Tobi was a careful individual, but it was in ways he preferred to keep entirely to himself. It was much more fun to ruin other people's day with his own special blend, really. And all that they'd say was, 'stupid Tobi' and try to fuss or attack him and he'd be on his way real quick-like.

And they'd never be the wiser.

That was the real beauty of it all. Tobi liked it, enjoyed it. He had way too much time on his hands before anyway. Ah, the arguing leveled down slightly on Deidara's end; that was always the best time to interrupt, if you didn't want to be dragged into it as a human shield.

"Ah, Sasori-san!" he shouted, cupping his hands to the obnoxiously orange mask for the sake of making the man twitch. Really, he wasn't that far behind them either. He could use his inside-voice. He just liked this one much better.

And oh, the beauty of seeing that small man twitch as though he had nerves, as though he wasn't exactly what he made himself to be. If only he knew what Tobi saw when he looked at him.

If only he cared.

Chuckling to himself, Tobi smirked.

If only Tobi cared.

"I still don't get it, yeah."

Sasori's back heaved momentarily as he sighed, his hand straying away to grab a tool before continuing on with his work. "You know I'm a poison expert, Deidara. Considering the events of late I thought you'd be more comfortable eating knowing I had nothing to do with the preparation of your meal."

"I get it, yeah. But I'd rather trust danna than some strangers, at least I know what you're capable of, yeah." The blond nodded fiercely at this, the smirk plastered across his face one of amusement. "Ano, normally danna would just say 'fuck it' and tell me to go eat something, maybe give me money to go get something but that's pushing my luck, yeah? Sasori-danna went _way_ out of his way. You're not like that, yeah," Deidara explained cheerfully, already chewing on another mouthful. "Then again, Sasori-danna hasn't been acting like Sasori-danna lately, yeah?"

Sasori quirked an eyebrow but continued on with his work for the time being. Deidara had begun pestering him about his behavior after they were safely returned to their chambers. The constant flow of the young male's chatter while Sasori was attempting to concentrate on fixing the last bit of his wounded shell was annoying, but he'd deal with it; any alternative to it would simply be even more of a bother. "How so, gaki?"

"Hmph. You're_more_ violent and _friendlier_ and more _senile_ than ever, yeah."

Sasori twitched, the movement travelling the entirety of his body instantly. "_Senile._" The game had suddenly gotten more annoying than Sasori had given it credit for.

"I don't know how you manage to _look_ so young, danna, yeah, but you act like you're some doddering old idiot, yeah." The blond spoke through a mouthful of noodles, sneering through his fringe at the room's other occupant. _He's gonna get Hiruko done anyway, I might as well squeeze a bit of fun out of him before he mutates again, yeah._

"You're pushing it, Deidara." The delicate instrument between his fingers didn't actually look as though it'd remain in one piece for much longer.

"Oh come on danna, how old are you, yeah? _Twice_ my age, at least..."

"How and why I am this way is none of your concern." Sasori still hadn't bothered to turn and look at the blond in the eye. This was a bit aggravating since he couldn't see the full reaction and enjoy it as much as possible, but Deidara had already planted himself on his own bed for once and it wasn't exactly the best time to be getting within close range of the other man. A few minutes of silence passed and Sasori wondered if Deidara had decided to forfeit.

He had just refitted the paneling and begun to put away his tools when his partner chose to speak, having been staring hard at him the entire time in contemplative silence. "True, you're still a creepy old man." Sasori growled, the rumbling sound vaguely reminiscent of Hiruko, reminding Deidara that the puppet still lay there dormant; Sasori hadn't yet moved to return to his shelter.

Actually, he hadn't bothered to respond, aside from the odd growl. While Deidara wondered what it was his danna was thinking and debating interrupting, Sasori abruptly slammed a drawer shut and muttered incoherently, obviously quite cross. "I know it's just me, it's always just me!" he spat to thin air before stalking out of the room and resealing the door a bit too loudly.

Ah. Well then, that was definitely Sir Leader. Deidara frowned. Despite being quite fond of Deidara's progress and usefulness, Sir Leader never invited the young man into a conference, not once. It didn't bother him much, really, and at one point he had just begun assuming that when Sasori wasn't in the chamber he was with Sir Leader. Other than that, the puppetmaster never left the room.

One last ploy. He had to, it had to be done. It was just sitting there after all, and if he was going to be made to live with his danna in that ugly thing, then he could at least express his opinion on it in an artistic manner. It wasn't as grand as what he _wanted_ to do to Hiruko, sure, but Deidara settled for dumping the remainder of his yakisoba into Hiruko's hollow body before going take his shower.

It was a relatively unassuming end, in Deidara's opinion. Hardly worth the effort he had put into it all. Sasori wasn't any different than he was before, and now there wasn't much short of turning Hiruko into a blazing chunk of smoldering remains that would keep the other man walking free. Deidara would have seriously considering acting on the whim if it weren't for the fact that there wouldn't be much protecting _him_, and it wasn't his time. He still had a few things left to birth, left to perfect, before he'd be satisfied. So he couldn't let Sasori get to him before then.

"What're _you_ up to, puppet man?"

Sasori's lip twitched slightly as he quickly made his way along the maze of corridors. He had been hoping he wouldn't pass anyone along the way, considering how intricate the place was and how very, very few people actually inhabited it – much less how little time most of them bothered to spend _in_ it.

"I don't have time for you."

"Eh, fuck off then. You're just a damned heretic anyway," Hidan shouted down the hall to the figure's back.

_No more. No more. Just give me the damn mission so I can be gone and out of this damned place and get something done for once..._

Sasori was fretting. Not in a manner that was outwardly visible, naturally, but he was troubled now. Pein had clearly said there was much to discuss, which meant something big. But the other thing he mentioned... _No more..._

"What the hell is it that you have to say something like _that_ to make me bother coming in here?" Sasori demanded as he entered the large chamber, shutting the door behind him. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be taken care of in a matter of minutes. Not with a summons like _that_.

Turning to face the main portion of the 'office' as it were, Sasori frowned. Sitting there calm and complacent was a ginger-haired man decorated with all manner of piercings and a slight frown on his face as he gazed upon the puppeteer questioningly. "Still no Hiruko, Sasori?"

"I was cleaning up when you summoned me." _In person. Fuck._ There was no avoiding it then.

"Ah, that's good news then. I was afraid of pushing this assignment to you until you were at your best, but I'm afraid it can't be delayed any more than this," the man explained, tilting his head for a moment in a glance to the material he had gathered on the desktop.

Sasori raised an eyebrow as he made his way to the large desk, oddly placed desk. "What does it have that requires us specifically?" It appeared that the man wanted to get the details of the mission out of the way before their other little discussion would begin.

Pein stared him in the eyes for a moment or so, his left arm propped so that his fingers hid his lips as he wondered. Finally he admitted, "I want it gone. No traces. The corpses you have no use for, I'll have Zetsu nearby to dispose of for you."

Sasori glanced at the location pinned on the map. _That town..._ he mused, glancing the rest of the information over. It wasn't a part of this, it seemed. "Ah, that place," Pein commented, watching as Sasori's eyes flickered to the marker momentarily. "The people there have begun to behave in ways that threaten our current whereabouts; they're also expanding beyond the point that was allotted them. If they don't show signs of changing course we'll have to rebuke them. But that's not yours to worry about right now, Sasori. How is your partner?"

"He's fit to leave when we're ready," Sasori returned curtly, disliking the knowing smirk on his superior's countenance.

Another hand raised; now both were woven in front of the mouth. "And how are you?"

"Quite busy."

"Sasori," Pein said, looking across to him. "You said so yourself, Hiruko is restored. You and I both know that your preparations are constantly secured. What other function could possible keep you busy?" The pause was brief; the conversation had come time and time again, after all. "What is it about me that bothers you?"

"What do you care about it? You're the one who tells us our reasons mean nothing."

Pein rolled his shoulders lightly, barely bothering with the effort of the conversation. "Then we'll say I'm pretending to be curious. You are the most removed from agitation when I only bother with my projection, yet you are somehow the most tense when I speak with you in person. It's not because you act out against me beyond reason, and you don't fear me."

"There's no reason for any form of familiarity beyond that of the missions," Sasori finally stated flatly. It was expected of him, he knew. Their leader merely cared for results, and was really quite ruthless... yet he played games. He demanded they behave like proper gents to each other, pay proper respects, be a cheerful community... and then he'd smile with his teeth and lie.

Sasori couldn't grasp at it, didn't want to. There was something so peculiar about how the pierced man carried himself, wove these conversations, that it hardly made much sense. He lacked devotion and passion, but at the same time appeared to breathe it. It was frustrating for Sasori, because he couldn't stand it. Their leader didn't care one way or another for any one thing particularly strongly on the surface, but it was quite clear he had a head full of opinion. He didn't have to be arrogant; his qualifications bled from his existence. Was it that reason that the others couldn't stand to be near him? Every person within this lair had always been the most treacherous of beings; having a leader who oozed a natural prowess over the rest of them probably was like inhaling toxin. For Sasori himself, he wasn't sure what to make of it. It just happened to make it quite clear when the man wanted him for something and when he wasn't part of the equation.

There was no doubt that the reason for him being in the lair in person, at least a good part of it, was to speak with Sasori. The redhead wanted no part of it. But those were the terms of the Akatsuki. You did what was demanded of you in return for your sanction and ease of leisure. Sasori supposed the man would go as far to say that Sasori was in need of exercise, or that he looked gaunt... the sort of remarks that had no way of pertaining to him, the sort he demanded did nothing to bother him.

But that man said them all the same.

Pein, the leader of the organization, this ginger-haired tom cat of a man without a discernable disposition, didn't play with people because it amused him. Sasori understood that much. Instead, the man played with those around him so that when the time came, they had to work to his rhythm. The redhead understood, recognized the method; it wasn't too dissimilar from puppetry... it just meant that he too was being led. It was part of being a member of Akatsuki, but it was becoming more and more apparent with each passing year that something was going on behind the scenes.

He didn't care for it much. He just wanted to do what was required of him and return to his own doings. It obviously concerned him very little. They continuously made it clear, and he in turn made it clear that he was glad for it.

The smile spread, a hand extended in a gesture that clearly meant 'sit down', though they both knew Sasori had no need and no weariness. "It's time for that talk."

Hours had passed before Sasori returned, entering the room quietly and making his way back to his puppet. The stench of the food already spoiling couldn't hit him like it would a normal person, but he knew all the same. It was just something the stupid thing would think of.

His mind flickered to the conversation again and he blinked. He made faces at Deidara quite often, now that he thought about it. There wasn't any real need to make them, but he did, sometimes. Normally, a person would have been quite upset or fuming or terrified or just simply exhausted. Sasori couldn't quite connect to those things, not fully. He felt the wraithlike remnants of each, and it seemed that the ones pertaining to anger were the strongest he had left.

Deidara blamed it on his childhood. Sasori didn't have any defense readily available against the notion so he had never bothered to disagree.

Pein's ideas about the subject were not nearly as easily brushed away and forgotten. They were quite vivid, in fact. He had painted a picture, and Sasori couldn't bring himself to burn it... yet. He needed some time to consider.

The man was so heavily weighed by his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed that he gave Hiruko a severe cleaning, a severe look-over, a severely hard stare. Nothing. He wasn't feeling anything at all, his mind wasn't racing, what he hated to refer to as his heart did little, he was just an existence. Just an existence. He was acting without knowing, without feeling anything at all.

This is what it meant to be him. This is what it meant to be.

He hadn't even remembered the noodles. They were just one more imperfection to dispose of in his cleaning. One more thing to throw out. The how and why they were there hardly mattered. He took care of his routine with extreme fervor. His busywork.

There were times where Sasori hated himself for what he had limited himself to. There were times where he claimed to not care.

There were times where he suddenly lost awareness of either.


	6. Author's Note! Chapter 4 posted

:EDIT: � Ahhh... for the record, I am writing (the handiness of having a laptop), but I went through a temporary period of being homeless (again) and emergency room screw ups and what not but I'm pretty much back in action.� And no worries, dears, that happens to me a bit frequently XD� As far as the reviewers who commented on no longer needing to adjust Sasori and Deidara's heights, I'm aware, thanks n.n� I had the disc that the artbook Sasori was in preordered and it came in and I squee'd about that, yes.

�I'm taking a bit 'longer' on posting what I've editted on grounds that I haven't updated the files on yet, as well as the fact that it's the prologue that is taking all this time.� Mainly because I have a few ways I can easily tweak it so that it flows with the Deidara flashback... I just really want to reread those chapters to be really accurate.� So I'm doing that, but I'm nearly done with editing that chapter!

As an added bonus, since it's taking a bit of time to finish editing, I started working on the next chapter, and that's going along well.� I honestly had no idea for it and hadn't planned such a spontaneous mission, but I always write as my fingers guide me n.n;;

�Once again, thank you for all your excellent comments and feedback!� It makes me cheerful, and I can always use a bit of that.� Cheers, back to my pizza and writing! 


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